Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
The Canadian federal election will be held on April 28, with first past the post used to elect the 343 MPs; 172 seats are required for a majority. The CBC Poll Tracker was updated Wednesday, and it gives the governing centre-left Liberals 44.0% of the vote (up 2.0 since my previous Canadian article on April 1), the Conservatives 37.1% (down 0.4), the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) 8.5% (down 0.6), the separatist left-wing Quebec Bloc (BQ) 5.4% (down 0.1) (23.9% in Quebec), the Greens 2.4% (down 0.4) and the far-right People’s 1.7% (down 0.5).
Seat point estimates are 201 Liberals (up four since my April 1 article), 116 Conservatives (down seven), 20 BQ (up one), five NDP (up two) and one Green (steady). The Tracker now gives the Liberals an 87% chance of a majority if the election were held now, up from 80% previously.
The Liberals and Conservatives have a combined 81.1% in the Tracker. If replicated at the election, this would be the highest two-party vote since 1958. The Conservatives need the NDP, BQ and Greens to regain support at the Liberals’ expense. But a Léger poll has remaining NDP and BQ voters strongly supporting a Liberal government (majority or minority) over a Conservative one.
On April 2, Donald Trump announced his big “Liberation Day” tariffs. In the following two sessions (April 3-4), US stock markets suffered brutal losses. On Wednesday US time, Trump said tariffs above 10% on countries other than China would be paused for 90 days, but tariffs on China would increase to 125% after both China and the US had engaged in a trade war. US stocks surged to their biggest one-day gain since 2008. Trump’s net approval in Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls has dropped 2.5 points since my April 1 article to -5.0.
Trump’s tariff chaos in the last week has not had a large impact on the Canadian election, with the Liberal lead up from six points to seven. Canada has already had large doses of Trump’s tariffs, so further doses probably have diminishing returns. With the Liberals ahead by seven points in national polls and well above a majority of seats, they are the likely winners of the election. In early January, the Conservatives were 24 points ahead and headed for a landslide.
New South Korean presidential election required
On December 3, former South Korean right-wing president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, and was impeached for this by parliament on December 14 with 204 “yes” votes, just over the 200 needed for a two-thirds majority of the 300 MPs. Last Friday, the Constitutional Court unanimously upheld Yoon’s impeachment.
While the court was deliberating, Yoon had been suspended, and the PM had assumed his powers. After the court’s ruling, Yoon was removed from office, and the next presidential election was required by June 3, about two years early. The election will be held on June 3, with this day (a Tuesday) being declared a public holiday.
The president is elected by FPTP. The major parties are the centre-left Democrats and Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP). Major party nominees have not yet been chosen, but hypothetical polling gives Lee Jae-myung, the current Democratic leader, a double-digit lead over all potential PPP candidates.
Parliamentary elections are held separately from presidential elections. At the last parliamentary elections in April 2024, Democrats and their allies defeated the PPP by 188 seats to 108, out of 300 total seats. Winning the presidential election would give Democrats control of government until the 2028 parliamentary elections.
NANOS 12-14 April (changes from 11-13 April)
Lib 44.1 % (-0.7)
Con 38.8% (+1.0)
NDP 8.8% (-)
BQ 5.5% (-)
Carney leads Poilievre 49-33% on preferred PM.
Nanos now has a completely ludicrous 46% gender gap: Libs lead 55-27% among women, but trail 33-51% among men.
LIAISON 12-14 April (changes from 11-13 April)
Lib 44 (-)
Con 39 (+1)
NDP 6 (-1)
BQ 5 (-1) = 21% in Quebec
One little nugget: in this poll Conservatives only lead 48-40% in Manitoba & Saskatchewan, the heart of ‘prairie land’ – although Winnipeg with 3/4 million people has >1/2 the population of Manitoba.
My crude estimate of combining these two provinces for the 2021 election’s results gives scores of:
Con 50%
Lib 14%
On the “Meanwhile in Canada” Facebook page lots of comments about Poilievre not attending a candidates debate in his own riding.
And echoed by people reporting the conservative candidate in the riding where they live also refusing to attend in favour of attending controlled, invite only, friendly questions events.
Of course the Poilievre trolls are out trying to say nothing wrong / abnormal about this.
Some even saying Carney isn’t attending the same hustings despite the fact he isn’t a candidate there!
@BTSays
Appreciate the post.
Reform may well win Doncaster Councklbut then comes the actual governing and having to balance budgets and competing priorities and residents complaints about getting access to social care for their aging mums, potholes and bins not being collected rather than boats and woke.
They may rail about “woke” and “immigrants” but they’ll find there is very little spend by local government on those in the first place.
And Doncaster also has an elected executive mayor which means the councillors have even less power over the running of the council. For that post Reform are staring from a very low base of 1.6% in 2021. And green and Lib Dem voters may well switch to Labour for thst election.
They don’t have a good record when they are in charge. In Thanet (Kent) their predecessors UKIP won 33 seats (and control of the council) in 2015 only to split shortly thereafter, lose control and then loose all seats in 2019.
ChrisC
Re Canada
I think you’ll find there’s been a lot more – in the MSM at least – about Carney frequently taking days off during the campaign.
There was a lot of coverage of Jean-Luc Blanchet’s live comments saying ‘Mr Carney is trying to get a free ride etc.’ and “the shortest-lived prime minister with the shortest possible election campaign with the least amount of days spent campaigning, hoping to slip in thanks to the ‘Trump saga'” (I paraphrase).
Carney has overplayed his ‘looking Prime Ministerial’ bit jaunting off like that. It worked for Doug Ford in Ontario, but you can’t just copy that – plus Ford had been Premier already for 6 years so was a known quantity.
ChrisC
UK/Doncaster
Their leader might be the same, but I think Reform are a bit more organised than the shower that was UKIP in 2015!
But no doubt there will be some further public fall-outs to come as part of their growing pains.
Doncaster is interesting because they elected an English Democrat mayor in the past – Peter Davies, father of Conservative MP Phillip Davies of ? Shipley. (now ex-MP)
So they’re not strangers to further right parties in office, I can’t remember whether Davies got re-elected or not. I expect he’s a Reform member these days, but wouldn’t know.
MAINSTREET 13-15 April
Lib 44 (-) Carney 54-38% approval up 7
Con 42 (-1) Poilievre 46-47% approval down 7
Curiously, undecideds have ticked up from 4% to 6% – still historically very low, and a world away from c.40% in Australia! – though the question might be worded a bit differently.
Poll tracker averages and seat projection by province, vs. vote share / seats won in 2021 election:
BRITISH COLUMBIA 43 seats
Lib 42.7 (+15.7) = 23 (+8)
Con 39.8 (+6.6) = 18 (+5)
NDP 12.4 (-16.8) = 2 (-11)
Green 3.0 (-2.3) = 0 (-1)
PPC 1.3 (-3.6)
ALBERTA 37 seats
Lib 30.1 (+14.6) = 8 (+6)
Con 56.7 (+1.4) = 28 (-2)
NDP 9.1 (-10) = 1 (-1)
Green 1.2 (+0.3)
PPC 1.9 (-5.5)
SASKATCHEWAN & MANITOBA 28 seats (14 in each)
Lib 33.5 (+14.3) = 8 seats (+4)
Con 51.0 (+1.9) = 19 seats (-2) last time included a clean sweep in Saskatchewan
NDP 11.7 (-10.3) = 1 seat (-2)
Green 1.9 (+0.5)
PPC 1.5 (-5.6)
ONTARIO 122 SEATS
Lib 49.2 (+9.9) = 84 (+6)
Con 38.4 (+3.5) = 36 (-1)
NDP 8.1 (-9.7) = 1 (-4)
Green 2.2 (-) = 1 (-)
PPC 1.6 (-3.9)
QUEBEC
Lib 43.1 (+9.5) = 46 (+11)
Con 23.3 (+4.7) = 13 (+3)
BQ 23.7 (-8.4) = 19 (-13)
NDP 5.5 (-4.3) = 0 (-1)
Green 1.8 (+0.3)
PPC 1.7 (-1.0)
ATLANTIC CANADA 32 seats
Lib 54.9 (+10.7) = 26 (+2)
Con 34.7 (+3.1) = 6 (-2)
NDP 6.7 (-9.3) = 0 (-)
Green 1.7 (-1.7)
PPC 1.0 (-2.9)
Libs won 2/3 seats in Northern Canada last time to NDP’s 1/3, expect Libs would take all 3 this time.
Note that Conservatives are also up on VI in every province and territory, but are swamped by the greatly risen Liberal tide. Some of Con’s rise would be straight from PPC in rural seats that weren’t in danger anyway, so wasted extra votes.
They could easily lose a lot more seats if Libs perform at the top end of the polling range.
For further context, at the time of the above averages & projections per region, the national average voting shares from all polls gave Lib a 6% lead, based on:
Lib 44.1%
Con 37.9%
NDP 8.2%
BQ 5.3%
Green 2.0%
PPC 1.6%
Other 0.8%
MAINSTREET 14-16 April: Lib (-) 44-40 (-2) Con
Approval:
Carney (-2) 52-40% (+2) so down 4
Poilievre (-) 46-47% (-) so no change
NANOS 13-15 April: Lib 45-37 Con and Pref PM = Carney 49-33% Poilievre
NANOS 14-16 April: Lib 44-39 Con and Pref PM = Carney 47-34% Poilievre
LIAISON 13-15 April: Lib 46-39 Con and Favourability Carney +27, Poilievre -13
LIAISON 14-16 April: Lib 44-41 Con (no Favourability data offered in report) – highest Con number for them, and lowest Green at 1%
LEGER 11-14 April:
Lib 43 (-1)
Con 38 (+1)
NDP 8 (-)
BQ 6 (+1)
Preferred PM:
Carney (+1) 38-30% (+3) Poilievre
ABACUS 14-15 April
Lib 40 (-2)
Con 38 (-)
NDP 11 (+2)
BQ 7 (+1)
Preferred PM:
Carney (-3) 40-34% (-) Poilievre
Among those ‘certain to vote’ only, the numbers above shift to 39/40/12/7 so actually a miniscule vote lead for Cons.
(partially) post-French debate
NANOS 15-17 April: back to Lib 45-37% and Carney leading as PM 49-34%
But their ‘gender’ numbers are really cranky IMHO this campaign. Underneath that headline number that looks the same as 2 days before, Libs’ lead among women is down 9% and Cons’ lead among men is down 11%. There were no obvious pro/anti men/women moments in the French debate – yes they may have different priorities to an extent, but this is a 20% reduction in the ‘gender disparity’ just like that, with the same headline numbers, bringing the disparity down to a ‘mere’ 22%.
MAINSTREET 15-17 April: Lib 42-41%, no significant changes on ‘favourability’
(Below a poll pre-debates)
EKOS POLITICS ending 16 April (changes from poll ending 10 April)
Lib 44.5% (-4.8)
Con 34.8% (-1.5)
NDP 10.1% (+3.4)
BQ 4.5% (+0.7)
Green 3.4% (+1.4)
As is typical, Ekos numbers are doing things a bit different to everyone else’s.
Not sure if there are any other polls yet to be published that are taken mostly or entirely prior to both debates, which have now happened the last two night 16-17 April.
(Liaison claim their 3-day rolling ending 16 April did already include some post-French debate response, especially in Western Canada due to time difference)