Breathing down Poilievre’s neck

Alright Ontario, we’re on day 13, 16 more to go. Big news: I have enough data to change my tracking chart. Bigger news: nothing. The race remains as it has been. 

After 2 weeks of tracking a stagnant Ontario race, I had started to internalize that things in Ontario can’t change. But boy, oh boy, that’s not the case. The federal leadership dynamic is changing quickly. But let’s start with where we are now. 

The real premise of the Ontario election is that Ford wanted to take advantage of Justin Trudeau’s tremendous unpopularity. He assumed the Liberal brand was so wounded that he’d be able to easily skate to victory. I’m not going to say that there hasn’t been brand damage to the Liberal Party, there certainly has been, but that’s not the full story of the federal-provincial dynamic. 

Let’s start by giving credit where it’s due: Doug Ford is simply the most popular leader in Ontario. This isn’t just a “not Liberal” thing, he’s more popular than Poilievre. Poilievre isn’t creating drag for Ford - their unfavourables are pretty much the same, but Ford is better liked overall.  

It remains the case that Bonnie Crombie isn’t very well known. 1 in 5 Ontarians have a very unfavourable view of her, nowhere near the 48% of Ontarians who had a very unfavourable view of Trudeau in early January. And the front-runner to replace Trudeau, Mark Carney, is now more favourably viewed than Bonnie Crombie. 

Compared to Poilievre, Carney trails by 6 points in terms of total favourability, but his “very unfavourables” are almost half that of Poilievre’s. Not bad at all. 

If we’re looking for evidence of drag, I’d also be looking at the NDP. 43% of Ontarians have an unfavourable view of Jagmeet Singh, slightly outflanking Poilievre’s unfavourables. His very unfavourables are more than twice that of Marit Stiles.

I promised you change, so let’s start with Poilievre’s joy-inspiring numbers. Whenever I’d write about Poilievre in the past, I’d harp that he’s a polarizing figure—roughly equal portions of the population had very favourable and very unfavourable views of him. That’s no longer the case. He currently has a 9-point deficit, with more Ontarians feeling very negatively than very positively about him. He had received a pretty significant Trudeau resignation bump, which has since disappeared.

I haven’t tracked impressions of Ford as frequently, but since the fall, Ford has become a lot more popular. It appears that Poilievre’s slide isn’t simply a broad souring on Conservatives or a result of the Liberals getting new life. Voters are seeing something they don’t like.

Now, drumroll, Carney has seen significant gains in his favourability since September. Critically, as people get to know him, they tend to like him. He has mostly seen positive movement, and his unfavourables haven’t changed since he got into the LPC leadership race.

From September to early January, Freeland became a bit more polarizing. Since seeking the leadership, both her favourables and unfavourables have declined somewhat. Today, a plurality of Ontarians have a neutral view of her.

Methodology

All polls were conducted online via the Cint platform. Specifications for each study are as follows:

• Sep 12-16, 2024: national survey fielded in English and French. The Ontario subsample was n=484.

• Jan 6-8, 2025: national survey fielded in English and French. The Ontario subsample was n=403.

• Feb 8-10, 2025: survey fielded in English among n=662 Ontarians.