Poll puts Trudeau Liberals at lowest point since 2015

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Justin Trudeau’s fortunes continue to tumble downward.

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After spending the last two weeks taking credit for the Bank of Canada interest rate cut and attacking his Conservative opponent, Trudeau’s poll numbers have fallen – again.

According to Abacus Data’s latest poll, the Trudeau Liberals enjoy the support of just 22% of voters, the lowest level Abacus has tracked them at since the 2015 election.

Nationally, the poll shows the Conservatives with 42% voter support, the Liberals at 22% and the NDP at 19%. The poll of 1,500 people was taken between June 6 and June 13, which is after the interest rate hike and after the Liberals started attacking Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre over his security clearance.

Seems like every time the Liberals claim Poilievre is having a bad week, like they did last week, the polls say otherwise.

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Just over a year ago, the Conservatives and Liberals were tied — or at least close — in several polls but the divide began to widen in June 2023 and became a consistent double-digit lead for the Conservatives by last September. Since the start of 2024, the Conservatives have stretched that lead, often coming out 20 points ahead of their Liberal rivals.

This latest Abacus poll comes three weeks after they detected a slight tightening of the race – just a 16-point lead for the Conservatives – and just over a week after a Nanos poll put the Conservatives just 12 points ahead of their Liberal rivals.

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Liberal supporters have tended to jump on those polls as proof of a comeback but let’s be honest, whether the Conservatives were to win an election with a 12-, 16- or 20-point lead, it’s still going to be a majority Conservative government. Things are so bad for the Liberals right now that there is plenty of chatter about the possibility that the party could lose the June 24 byelection in Toronto-St. Paul’s.

The last time the Conservatives won that riding was 1988 under then-Conservative cabinet minister Barbara McDougall.

The Liberals have held it ever since and even in 2011, when the Liberals fell to just 18% of the national popular vote, they took St. Paul’s with 39% of the vote, beating the Conservatives by 7 points. That was under former cabinet minister and longtime incumber Carolyn Bennett. However, now both Liberal candidate Leslie Church and Conservative challenger Don Stewart are fresh faces.

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It’s likely that the Liberals will hold this riding — the fact that there is even a discussion of them losing, and that local Liberals are nervous, tells you how bad things are for the party straight across the country.

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The Abacus poll has the Conservatives leading in every region of Canada except Quebec, where they are polling at 22%, which is better than usual and could result in seat gains. In Ontario, the Conservatives are polling at 44% to the Liberals’ 27%, which likely means more than 80 of the province’s 121 seats would turn blue even if Toronto-St. Paul’s isn’t one of them.

The Conservatives are also holding a significant lead over the Liberals among all age groups — even the younger voters Trudeau and his team targeted the big spending budget at. In fact, the best age group for the Liberals are voters over the age of 60 where they are polling at 28% to the Conservatives’ 42% and the NDP’s 14%.

Barring a change, the election is more than a year away, and it’s always important to remember voters are fickle, polls change and campaigns matter.

Things are looking good for the Conservatives right now, but they know things can change, which is why they launched their attack ad on Trudeau last week. They don’t want to give Trudeau any chance of rebounding in the polls.

blilley@postmedia.com

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