For Those Who Want Pierre Poilievre To Never Become Prime Minister, There’s Some Excellent News.

A News Release from Data Shows, a professional, non-partisan data gathering venue based in Ontario, Canada

Posted October 8th, 2024 on Niagara At Large

Polls from Abacus, Nanos and Mainstreet released this past week show the federal NDP overtaking the Liberals.

All three pollsters show the Liberals at their lowest level of support since the 2021 election and the NDP in territory they have never or rarely touched since the last vote.

New framing creates pathway to stop Poilievre.

Polls showing the NDP on the upswing and the Liberals on their way out start an important reframing of the next election.

It’s a new frame Pierre Poilievre won’t like because it removes his preferred enemy and ends the inevitability of his win.

As long as the next election was perceived as a battle between the Trudeau Liberals and the Poilievre Conservatives, a Conservative win remained as inevitable as the Liberal loss.

The reason Poilievre is prime minister-in-waiting is not because his Conservatives are so liked but because the Trudeau Liberals are so disliked. The Conservatives prefer a battle framed as Poilievre versus Trudeau because it ensures they can rely on the large anti-Liberal vote rallying behind them for the win.

A contest perceived as a battle between Singh and Poilievre is on much less certain ground.  Conservatives lose the advantage of fighting the hated Liberals. And they face a new opponent also able to appeal to anti-Liberal voters.

Advancing the plot of the Singh-Poilievre competition

To both coalesce the anti-Conservative vote and erode Conservative support, the NDP will no doubt attack Poilievre where is out of step with mainstream Canadian opinion and values.

Look for Singh to talk about Conservatives cutting people’s dental care and pharmacare and point at Poilievre’s lack of climate policy. Singh may also pique memories about past Conservative cuts to veterans’ services, seniors’ pensions and health care transfers.

The NDP may also point out that Poilievre loudly proclaims his goal to eliminate the $40 billion deficit but keeps his cuts plan quiet.

The NDP must also reduce its vulnerabilities. Fresh policy can make it more difficult for Conservatives to cast Singh as Trudeau 2.0. And ideally, new stances will bait the Conservatives into showing they would be, like the Liberals were, unwilling to put Canadians first because they are too beholden to corporate interests.

The path to stopping Poilievre is a tough one. But Singh has already done something few junior partners in a coalition or supply deal have been able to do: emerge stronger.

Two years ago New Democrats were told that was impossible. Now New Democrats will be told the next step is impossible. Hopefully the final step is when Poilievre asks his campaign team what went wrong.

View this post on the web at https://tparkin.substack.com/p/polls-show-singhs-ndp-overtaking

About Data Shows – Some things actually matter. And when they do, effective people use data to guide their actions and evaluate their results. Ineffective people hide the data.

SubscribeBottom of FormData Shows brings reliable data and data analysis from quality sources like StatsCan, Bank of Canada, CMHC, CIHI, elections commissions and others.

Data Shows  editor is Tom Parkin. Contact me with interesting data, data chart or a guest piece you’d like to submit to Data Shows: tparkin@impact-strategies.ca .

Tom Parkin@tparkin Canadian columnist and commentator with a bluntly social democratic perspective. I write a lot about data that matters to our everyday lives. But sometimes it’s just plain opinion.

NIAGARA AT LARGE Encourages You To Join The Conversation By Sharing Your Views On This Post In The Space Following The Bernie Sanders Quote Below.

“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders