PM’s problem

Even if he quits, it might not save the Liberals, poll suggests

It is the question haunting Justin Trudeau’s Liberals as their fortunes continue to slump — is there a comeback path? More to the point, if one does exist, is it with Trudeau or without him?

After a bruising fall, with 53 per cent of people saying they have a negative impression of Trudeau in the latest Abacus polling, these questions have become more pointed in the past few weeks.

So Abacus went into the field across Canada for the Star over the past week to do a deep dive into those questions. It found little comfort for the prime minister personally or the Liberals in general.

David Coletto, CEO of Abacus, did not mince words. “Trudeau stepping down might help bring some people back to the Liberals, but that’s not a silver bullet. It doesn’t solve all the problems,” he said.

“The data suggests there’s very little the Liberals can do themselves to make them more electable at the moment. Enough people have decided they want change.”

Gloomy numbers and negative impressions for Trudeau have become the norm as the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre continue to climb in the polls. This week, Sen. Percy Downe, former chief of staff to prime minister Jean Chrétien, voiced what some Liberals have been saying privately — that it may have come time for Trudeau to start eyeing the exit.

The Star wanted to delve further into the malaise, to see what was fuelling it. Is it Trudeau dragging down the party? Is the antipathy personal or policy-based? Does it revolve around who he is or around what he has — or has not — done?

It’s all of that, Abacus found. Among those with mostly negative views, 90 per cent say Trudeau lacks a clear vision, 86 per cent say he’s “inauthentic and phoney” and 56 per cent say he got Canada into the mess it is today.

This is a regular refrain from Conservatives and their supporters, but Abacus decided to probe negative sentiments among two key constituencies — those who voted Liberal in 2021, and those who are still open to voting Liberal in the next election.

If there’s a comeback, one assumes, it would be found among these voters, who have helped Trudeau squeak out two minority wins despite the odds against him in 2019 and 2021.

The prospects for that don’t look great in this deep-dive survey.

A full 77 per cent of people who voted Liberal in 2021 say they are tired of Trudeau, 91 per cent say he’s inauthentic and 82 per cent say he makes promises he can’t keep. Among these former Liberal voters, even more believe Trudeau got Canada into the mess it’s in.

Roughly those same kind of results emerge among people open to voting Liberal next time, with 48 per cent saying Trudeau has lost his passion for the job and 67 per cent saying he apologizes too much for things that have happened in the past.

So what if Trudeau did take a walk in the snow, as his father did 40 years ago, before the 1984 election? Among all of those who don’t support the Liberals right now, more than a third of them, 34 per cent, say they would more likely vote for the party if Trudeau was gone. That number was even higher — 43 per cent — among the 2021 Liberal voters who have drifted away.

Liberals have been counting on the idea that the more people see of Poilievre, the better Trudeau will look. It has become common to say in Liberal circles that Trudeau may be unpopular, but he’s the best bet to defeat Poilievre.

Abacus’s latest polling introduces some doubt to that theory.

Coletto puts it this way: “First, far more people think Poilievre and the CPC will win the next election than think the Liberals will. This is a big change and indicates the public is coming around to the idea that the Conservatives are going to win. This is a problem for the Liberals. Even though people think the CPC will win, it hasn’t impacted their vote. Poilievre isn’t a threat to people.”

Yet Abacus did test what would send people to the Liberal camp in the next election and Poilievre could still be a factor. Among all of those who don’t support Liberals right now, 33 per cent said they might be inclined to vote for the red team if it looked like Poilievre was going to win. A full 52 per cent of past Liberal voters say they might go back to the party if they felt uncomfortable with the idea of Poilievre as prime minister.

This will give some ammunition to Liberals who have been arguing that the party needs to take a more aggressive approach to Poilievre on the advertising front. In recent days, Liberals have been circulating ads on social media that compare Poilievre to Donald Trump. They put remarks from Poilievre and his team — using words like “woke” or lashing out at the media — side by side with Trump saying the same things.

The Abacus survey was carried out from Oct. 27 to Nov. 1, among 2,200 adult Canadians and results are considered accurate within 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

So these questions landed with respondents in the immediate aftermath of last week’s surprise announcement of a rollback in the carbon price on home heating fuel — which has stirred up another outcry against Trudeau and the Liberals, who are accused of eroding their climate-change plans to favour their electoral base in Atlantic Canada.

It may have been too soon, but Abacus didn’t pick up any opinion bonus in the region, where the percentage of homes that use heating oil is the largest in Canada. “The change in policy on the carbon tax hasn’t had any immediate impact. The Conservatives still have an eight-point lead there over the Liberals,” Coletto said.

Overall, the horse-race numbers continue to show Poilievre and the Conservatives with 39 per cent support, close to the magic 40 per cent that’s generally needed for a majority win, while Liberals are at 26 per cent and the New Democrats at 18 per cent.

Privately, Liberals have been staking some hopes on the idea that if the economy improves, their fortunes might, too. That’s not entirely without substance. When Abacus asked if an improving economy and lower interest rates might tilt people back to voting Liberal, a full 59 per cent of past Liberal voters said they could make the same choice if the economy improved, and 44 per cent said they’d consider coming back to the Liberal fold if mortgage interest rates started to drop.

Just a couple of months ago, the Liberal caucus held a retreat in London, Ont., which featured some frank discussion about where things were off track. The subject of Trudeau’s leadership did come up, although no one demanded his resignation.

Coletto was one of the polling experts brought into that meeting, to describe what a challenging opinion environment faces Trudeau and his team.

These latest numbers show that the challenge appears to be increasing and attitudes toward Trudeau seem to be hardening, perhaps to a point of no return.

Coletto, candidly again, says the deep dive into Trudeau’s negatives should be raising doubts about his longevity. “In short, after eight years in office, too many people are just finished with him. He’s a big part of the problem and there’s little faith he can get focused on the things they care about it.”

The data suggests there’s very little the Liberals can do themselves to make them more electable at the moment. Enough people have decided they want change.

DAVID COLETTO CEO OF ABACUS ABOUT CROSS-CANADA POLL

A full 77 per cent of people who voted Liberal in 2021 say they are tired of Trudeau, 91 per cent say he’s inauthentic and 82 per cent say he makes promises he can’t keep. Among these former Liberal voters, even more believe Trudeau got Canada into the mess it’s in