Carney Says He Isn’t Justin Trudeau. Canadians Agree
Throughout the election campaign, the Conservatives have been trying to tie Mark Carney to Justin Trudeau. During the leaders’ debates, Mark Carney responded to that by saying, “I’m not Justin Trudeau”. In a representative survey of 1,001 respondents that I ran from April 4th to 7th, I found that Canadians agree with Carney. They can clearly tell him apart from former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Canadians see differences between Carney and Trudeau that have likely helped Carney turn around Liberal fortunes since he won the Liberal leadership. When Carney took over as leader, the Liberals moved into the lead in the polls after lagging behind the Conservatives for two years.
After almost 10 years in power, close to half of Canadians dislike Trudeau. Forty-five percent dislike him and only 30 percent like him. That’s 15 percentage points more who dislike him than like him. In contrast, 42 percent of Canadians like Carney and only 29 percent dislike him. That’s thirteen percentage points more Canadians who like Carney than dislike him. Having a popular leader is a huge advantage in an election campaign.
I asked respondents to place themselves and each of the party leaders on an ideological scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means far left and 10 means far right. Their median placement of Trudeau was 3. That’s two points from the median Canadian, at 5. Their median placement of Carney was 4. Carney is, therefore, half as far from Canadians as Trudeau was.
Figure 1: Canadians' ideological placements of themselves, Trudeau, Carney and Poilievre. Canadians perceive Carney as being one percentage point closer to their own ideologies than Trudeau was.
The median placement of Pierre Poilievre is 8. Trudeau is two points from the median voter and Poilievre is three points from them. Carney is only one point away from the median voter. When Trudeau was the Liberal leader, Canadians could choose between Trudeau, who is two points to the left of them, and Poilievre, who is three points to the right of them. Poilievre was only one point more distant from Canadians than Trudeau was.
Since Carney became leader, the decision became between Carney, who is one point to the left of them and Poilievre, who is three points to the right of them. Carney, as the closer of the two, has a clear advantage when it comes to ideological proximity.
Canadians also see a big difference in how Carney and Trudeau relate to Donald Trump. Canadians correctly see Trudeau as having a bad relationship with the US president. Sixty-six percent of Canadians think Trudeau dislikes Donald Trump. Seventy-one percent think Trump dislikes Trudeau. In contrast, fifty-one percent of Canadians think Carney dislikes Trump. Only thirty-six percent of Canadians think Trump dislikes Carney. Again, at a time when repairing Canada-US relations is a top priority, having a leader who can get along with the mercurial US president might be seen as a good thing.
Even though the Conservatives have repeatedly tried to tie Mark Carney to Justin Trudeau, Canadians don’t buy it. They dislike Trudeau, they see him as being too left-wing and they see him as not getting along with the US president. In contrast, more Canadians like Carney and fewer dislike him, they see him as being more centrist and less antagonistic towards the US president.
Canadians, therefore, seem to agree with Mark Carney when he says, “I am not Justin Trudeau”. The differences they do see between Carney and his predecessor are huge advantages for the Liberals in the election campaign and likely at least partly explain the Liberals' lead in the polls.