As year ends, the Conservatives are polling better than at any point since the election

As Canada closes out 2025, the Conservatives are suddenly polling higher than at any point since the swearing-in of Mark Carney as prime minister.

In the last days of December, several pollsters posted year-end results finding that the Conservatives and Liberals would be neck and neck in a federal election.

A Dec. 19 poll by Innovative Research had the Liberals and Conservatives tied at 39 per cent. A Dec. 22 Liaison Strategies poll had them tied at 38 per cent. And a Dec. 23 Nanos poll had the Tories just trailing the Liberals at 35.6 per cent to 36.3 per cent.

It’s the best news for the Conservatives since their loss in the April federal election, but it’s a far cry from last Christmas, when the Conservative spent the holidays with a seemingly bulletproof polling lead of more than 20 points.

In 2024, a Dec. 30 poll by the Angus Reid Institute put the Conservatives at 45 per cent, against the Liberals at an all-time low of 16 per cent.

An Angus Reid Institute analysis called it “quite possibly the lowest vote intention the Liberals have ever received in the modern era.”

But the lead would evaporate in the successive four months due to two factors.

One, the deeply unpopular Justin Trudeau was shuffled out as prime minister in favour of Mark Carney.

Second, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a trade war against Canada, sparking a rallying of support around the incumbent Liberals.

A similar phenomenon would also define the most recent Australian general election, held only a few days after Canada’s.

Although the centre-right Liberal–National Coalition had long been a favourite to win, trade threats from Trump would help spark a rebound for the incumbent Labour prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

In the Liberals’ case, their 11th hour electoral reprieve came largely at the expense of the NDP.

Support for the NDP plunged to the lowest levels in the party’s history in the last election. In the months since, they’ve effectively remained a fringe party, with the Liberals seeming to permanently pick up several points of support among voters who have historically voted NDP.

Even if the Conservatives are still at a disadvantage to win the next election, their current polling numbers are actually about the same as they were when they remained a shoo-in to form the next government.

All throughout December, their most favourable polls had them hovering at between 38 and 40 per cent of voter intentions.

This is where the Tories stood last February, when they were continuing to dominate every available electoral projection. A Feb. 11 Leger poll, for instance, put them at a dominating 40 per cent to the Liberals’ 31 per cent.

But, as was the case in the April federal election, they remain pitched against a Liberal Party that also continues to poll at historic highs.

Carney is consistently charting poll numbers in the low 40s, higher than almost anything achieved by his predecessor. Trudeau’s best-ever electoral showing, in 2015, came in at just 39.5 per cent.

In recent weeks, as questions have been raised about the leadership of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, some of his defenders have made the somewhat awkward case that Poilievre is indeed the most electorally successful leader the party has ever had, even if he’s failed to become prime minister.

As B.C. Conservative MP Aaron Gunn wrote in a Dec. 15 Facebook post, “by all accounts, if the federal NDP wasn’t a complete dumpster fire, Conservatives would have secured a majority government either last spring or if a new election were held today.”

But likely the biggest unknown of 2026 is when that next election will be.

In the last two months, Carney has lured two MPs from the Conservative caucus to join his Liberals. If two more make the switch, he’ll be able to govern with a secure majority, seemingly insulating him from any threat of an election until 2029.