Justin Trudeau is running out of time, according to Politico, he is losing ground in the polls despite his best efforts to turn around the Liberal Party of Canada and his public persona. He has been trailing in polls by double digits for nearly a year.
The future for the once-popular prime minister is so bleak that even old guard Liberals have suggested he resign and give someone else a chance. Trudeau has less than 17 months until he must hold an election against a resurgent Conservative Party and its firebrand populist leader, Pierre Poilievre.
The problem is that nothing he’s done to boost his standing among Canadians has worked.
“The Liberals have tried to basically throw the political kitchen sink at the Conservatives to find a way to narrow the gap,” said Nik Nanos, one of the country’s leading pollsters.
Trudeau’s issues are similar to those of President Joe Biden and certain Western European leaders dealing with populist rage in a world still fighting to recover from inflation and lingering anger over pandemic lockdowns.
The G7’s longest-serving leader also faces some unique challenges, including disenchantment with the Liberal Party after three mandates and a string of scandals that have harmed Trudeau’s reputation. Quito Maggi, a pollster with Mainstreet Research, believes that many Canadians have simply tuned out the prime minister.
“It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario for Trudeau because it almost doesn’t matter what he does or says right now,” Maggi stated. “No one is listening. It’s not the message, but the messenger.
Rumors of Trudeau Resigning
Trudeau’s efforts have included arranging visits to Canada for Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who earned a standing ovation in Parliament. “None of these things have changed the trend,” Nanos stated.
At this moment, talk about Trudeau’s resignation is just that – neither the prime minister nor any of his aides or allies have stated that he intends to stand aside.
But the moment he says he’s leaving, he becomes a lame duck and the leadership competition begins — so it’s in his best advantage to wait as long as possible before saying anything else.
Some believe the window for that choice is dwindling, with only a month or two remaining. Otherwise, a new leader would not have enough time to prepare for the impending election, which might occur any time before the fall of 2025.
Interviewers grill Trudeau on whether he actually intends to stay at the helm when the ship sinks. Nonetheless, he asserts at every opportunity that he intends to stay the course.
“The stakes are so high, and the moment is so real,” Trudeau explained on the “Freakonomics Radio” podcast.
Spoiling for a battle
If anything, the prime minister appears encouraged by the impending clash with Poilievre, who has harnessed and fueled political dissatisfaction by telling Canadians that their country is “broken” and it’s all Trudeau’s fault.
In a talk-show appearance earlier this year, Trudeau framed the next election as a war against “easy populism, anger, and division that is so running rampant in every society around the world.”
“I could not be the person I am and choose to step away from this fight right now.”
Poilievre Flying in the Polls
Trudeau’s political origin tale revolves around the outcome of a boxing fight in 2012, in which he exceeded expectations by defeating a muscular senator in the ring. Ask any Liberal in Canada, even the most depressed, and they’ll tell you he performs better when he’s under pressure.
And he is eager to face off against his competitor, which appears to delight his inner pugilist.
Poilievre, a populist attack dog leader who is flying in the polls, represents the very politics and principles that Trudeau hates.
“Here’s someone who really, really cranks [Trudeau’s] gears, that he believes he can defeat,” said a former top Liberal who requested anonymity to talk freely. “He sees someone who’s actively going to undo everything he’s tried to achieve.”
Trudeau and his party attempted to link Poilievre to Trump by citing similarities in their rhetorical style and political playbooks, and pounced after Poilievre received an endorsement from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The slogan-per-minute Conservative warriors have spent the past year successfully making the Liberal government a punching bag for its confusing carbon tax and a nationwide housing crisis that has afflicted the same voters who first swept Trudeau into power.
Poilievre’s Conservatives harass, goad, and taunt the Liberals to call an early election, as well as take shots at anyone they believe could be the next in line for Trudeau’s role as Liberal Party leader.
Proposed Leadership Review
If the previous, more centrist Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, had not been fired following the last election, Trudeau might have been more willing to call it quits, according to the former top Liberal.
For months, the country’s political elite have speculated about who could succeed Trudeau, with establishment Liberals even saying the quiet part aloud.
Sen. Percy Downe, a former senior aide to former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, called on Trudeau to resign last year, a statement that landed hard. Former finance minister John Manley likened Trudeau’s tenure to that of Seinfeld: a brilliant program for nine seasons but unable to secure a tenth.
Earlier this year, a lesser-known MP, Ken McDonald, broke ranks and proposed a leadership review, casting doubt on internal trust in Trudeau
There is no obvious successor to the leader who propelled his party from third to first place in the 2015 federal election, making switching horses a risky proposition.
“[Trudeau’s] group has completely stifled any kind of nurturing of that sort and not tolerated any dissent,” Maggi stated.
Potential replacements keep coming up in news coverage amid frenetic conjecture, but for a party historically known for its infighting, no one has tried to push him over the edge.
“Back in 2015, when he took over the party, [Trudeau] changed the party to more of a movement,” Nanos stated. “It’s hard to see a scenario where there would be a public dump-Trudeau movement.”
Mark Carney in the Running
Big personalities in the Liberal camp are interested in the top position, but none have the whole set of x-factors that made Trudeau’s candidacy so compelling: celebrity status, narrative arc, political dynasty, and top-tier retail politics game — the rizz.
“It’s not like, oh, boom, if Trudeau is replaced by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, it’ll be neck and neck. “It’s not working that way right now,” said Maggi, one of the pollsters who surveyed the public about prospective alternatives.
But someone will have to take Trudeau’s place at some point.
Freeland has the most name recognition among the group, but the Conservatives, hoping to win points in parliamentary discussions, have positioned Mark Carney, a former central banker in both Canada and the United Kingdom, as the next in line after Trudeau.
Trudeau’s close buddy, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who supported his leadership run in 2013 and has recently returned to work after having a leave of absence due to a rare cancer, is the latest name to circulate in the city.
However, in the lack of signs of significant organization, much of the discussion appears to be speculative and ill-conceived.
Pressure is on.
Trudeau has spent the last year trying to dig himself out of his hole.
He hired a new advertising expert who is familiar with millennials and Generation Z, two critical populations he has to draw into his party’s fold if he wants to stand a chance.
Trudeau recently pulled up his sleeves and traveled across the country for an extraordinary, weeks-long campaign-style unveiling of a significant spending proposal focused squarely at those two categories and their financial struggles.
The needle is still not moving
That has led him on a unique tour of the podcast circuit, looking for long-form interviews where he can explain himself and sell his tax-and-spend budget in a more relaxed setting than the hardball scrums with reporters outside Parliament.
He still has alternatives for attempting to reset the standings: shake up his Cabinet and top staff, change direction on spending measures, and launch a barrage of attack advertising.
According to Spark Advocacy pollster Bruce Anderson, those who are tired of Trudeau and gravitate toward his opponent are not stuck in their ways.
“I see the market as being unsettled,” he stated. “According to our polling, many people want a less-right alternative to Poilievre and a less-left alternative to Justin Trudeau. This is one of the challenges that I believe his progressive agenda has created for him and his party over time.
Trudeau’s plight will only worsen in the fall if his support rating does not improve, financing dwindles, his caucus fractures, and more parliamentarians announce that they will not run again.
“If the Liberal Party found itself in a situation a year from now, when it was 25 points behind in the polls, do I believe they would get together in caucus on a Wednesday and say, ‘Yeah, let’s just keep going in this direction’? That is not how I believe the chemistry of politics works.
Source: Politico
