Weekly Writ 1/22: Where Poilievre’s numbers have dropped the most
Has the Conservative leader consolidated his base at the expense of growth?
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Thursday morning.
Pierre Poilievre faces his leadership review next weekend at the Conservative Party’s convention in Calgary. With that vote just around the corner, a big shift in his personal ratings picked up by Abacus Data in its latest poll captured my attention.
Abacus found that 48% of Canadians polled reported having a negative impression of the Conservative leader. That was a jump of five points since Abacus’s previous poll conducted in early December. His positive rating dropped four points to 35%.
That is a big swing. Poilievre’s negative ratings have never been higher than 46% before. Apart from a few polls conducted during the election campaign Poilievre has always maintained a negative score of 44% or lower. His positive rating of 35% is the lowest it has been since mid-2023.
As Philippe and I discussed in this week’s episode of The Numbers, this could turn out to be a blip — just a statistical anomaly that gets reversed the next time we hear from Abacus. But it’s rare to see Abacus swing as significantly as this from one poll to the next, especially considering that the poll found virtually no change in voting intentions or the personal ratings of Mark Carney. All the movement was largely limited to how respondents viewed Poilievre.
We’ll have to wait until the next survey from Abacus to get a better idea of whether this is something real or not. But in the meantime I wanted to take a deeper look at this drop.
Before we get into that, here is what else is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on the rules of the B.C. Conservative leadership race and a byelection call in Quebec. Plus, we get confirmation of where Poilievre won’t be running, a clearer picture of the nascent CAQ leadership contest and a third kick at the can for John Fraser.
Polls give the Liberals a narrow lead but they remain in a minority position. Plus, where Quebecers stand on sovereignty and a referendum.
#EveryElectionProject: A trailblazer becomes PEI Liberal leader.
Now let’s get into Poilievre’s poll numbers.