As Election Day in Canada looms on Monday, support for the two major parties has started to converge in the polls, yet the race appears to remain the Liberal Party’s to lose.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party now leads the Conservative Party 42 percent to 39 percent on average, according to the CBC’s poll tracker, a drop from the nearly seven percentage point lead that the Liberals had at the start of the campaign last month. Some polls are showing an even slimmer lead, but the Liberal Party still looks poised to win, pollsters say.
“Because of the distribution of the vote nationally, there is a little bit of distortion, not unlike what you will see in the U.S. with the Electoral College,” said Sébastien Dallaire, the executive vice president for Eastern Canada for Leger, a major polling firm.
But, he added, “even if the national vote were to be tied, it would probably mean that the Liberals won more” seats in the House of Commons, allowing them to form a government and giving Mr. Carney a full term as prime minister.
Polls could also underestimate national support for the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, but it still might not be enough to overcome the Liberals’ advantage.
The Conservative Party won the popular vote in the past two elections, but still lost to the Liberals both times. The Conservatives can poll well nationally, but still fall short because their support tends to be concentrated in a smaller number of parliamentary districts.
Conservatives have overwhelming support in the Western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, but this amounts to relatively few seats because their populations are lower than provinces that are more competitive.
In Canada’s “first past the post” electoral system, in which the candidate who receives the most votes — but not necessarily a majority — wins, having a lower level of support in a higher number of districts is more of an advantage.
Polling in Ontario and Quebec, which have more seats than the rest of the country combined, shows a much stronger Liberal advantage. In Ontario, the Liberals have a seven percentage point lead on average, while in Quebec, it is closer to 15 percentage points.
Only a few months ago, a Liberal win in the election seemed extremely remote.
Canadians had soured on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party after a decade in power, and the Conservatives had a more than 20 percentage point lead in the polls.
But after President Trump launched a trade war against Canada and began threatening to annex the nation as America’s “51st state,” public sentiment began to turn. Once Mr. Carney replaced Mr. Trudeau as head of the party in March, the reversal of fortune gained momentum as voters saw Mr. Carney as the candidate most capable of taking on Mr. Trump.
Beyond the horse race, polling about the issues Canadians are most concerned about heading into Election Day has shifted, but it still suggests an advantage for Mr. Carney.
In recent weeks, surveys shows that the focus on Mr. Trump has waned, while the economy and affordability have become more salient issues. Across various polls, Mr. Carney and the Liberal Party have had the advantage on U.S.-Canada relations.
But Mr. Carney, with his experience as the head of the central banks in Canada and Britain, is also well regarded on economic issues: A plurality of Canadians in a recent Abacus Data poll said the Liberal Party was best able to grow the economy.
At the start of the campaign, more Canadians said they were voting based on which party they felt would be best suited to taking on Mr. Trump, according to polling by Abacus Data. In more recent surveys, a majority of Canadians say they’re more interested in which party can deliver a change in the country’s direction.
But while a majority of voters who prioritize change favor the Conservatives, one in four still prefer the Liberals, according to Abacus, despite the party being in power for the past decade.
“That tells me that Mark Carney has done enough to signal and comfort those voters that he is a sufficient enough change from Justin Trudeau,” said David Coletto, the founder and chief executive of Abacus Data. “The way that he approaches both leadership and this campaign has been satisfying enough to people who might otherwise have wanted a change. That, I think, is why they’re holding onto the lead.”
Kaleigh Rogers is a Times reporter covering election polls and the polling industry.
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