Liberals now leading Conservatives in exclusive new poll

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With an election call expected within days, a new national poll shows the Liberals leading the Conservatives by three points.

A new National Post-Leger poll shows that 42 per cent of Canadians now say they plan to cast a ballot for Mark Carney’s Liberals, while 39 per cent say they intend to vote for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.

It’s a stunning recovery in the polls for Carney’s Liberals. Support for the party, which has governed since 2015, had plummeted over the last year. The Conservatives held a significant lead, suggesting an election would lead to Liberal decimation in the House of Commons and a Poilievre-led supermajority.

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However, that looks to be in doubt. The resignation of Justin Trudeau in early January, followed by the election of Carney as Liberal leader, and coupled with an upsurge in patriotism in the wake of annexation threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, have led to a major recovery for the Liberals in the polls over the last few weeks.

“It’s the cherry on the sundae that was started back in mid-January,” said Andrew Enns, executive vice-president of Leger’s central Canada operations. “It’s a remarkable comeback.

The NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, languishes in a distant third, with just nine per cent of Canadians planning to vote for that party.

“That’s historically low,” said Enns. That progressive vote is probably shifting towards the Liberals, he said. “That’s a powerful electoral juggernaut they have going at the moment.”

The Bloc Québécois has five per cent support.

The polling also found that Poilievre has a net unfavourable rating among Canadians: 49 per cent say they have an unfavourable view of the Conservative leader, compared to 39 per cent who view the MP for Carleton favourably. In contrast, Carney, who served as governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis, has a 46 per cent favourability rating; just 28 per cent say they have an unfavourable view.

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However, there’s a wild card: 28 per cent say they don’t know enough about Carney to have an opinion, compared to just 12 per cent who say that about Poilievre, suggesting that an effective campaign to define Carney to Canadians — either by the Conservatives or the Liberals — could start to shift Carney’s ratings.

“There’s a bit of cautionary information,” said Enns. “I’m sure you talk to political strategists, they’ll also say that there’s risk there, that with that unpainted canvas, just be careful who gets hold of the paintbrush because they start filling it in the way they want to, that can become a bit of a problem.”

The Liberals seem to be the spot where a lot of that vote has shifted

Carney is also widely viewed as best-positioned to navigate the challenges facing Canada. Forty-five per cent say Carney is best-suited to grow Canada’s economy, compared to 31 per cent for Poilievre. Forty-two per cent say Carney is the best person to manage Trump, compared to 29 per cent for Poilievre. Carney is also widely favoured over Poilievre (40 per cent versus 13 per cent) on climate change.

However, voters are slightly more skeptical of Carney, when it comes to making life more affordable. Only 37 per cent say he’s best positioned compared to the 32 per cent who feel Poilievre’s best-suited for that task. Poilievre also leads Carney on reducing government spending (36 per cent versus 32 per cent) and on growing the Canadian Armed Forces (33 per cent versus 26 per cent).

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Atlantic Canada is the only region where the Liberals have secured a majority of decided voters: 51 per cent of Atlantic Canadians say they’ll vote for Carney’s team, compared to 32 per cent who say they’ll vote Conservative. Ten per cent of people in the Atlantic provinces say they plan to vote NDP.

In Quebec, Poilievre’s Conservatives, with 23 per cent support, are in third place, trailing the Liberals (40 per cent) and the Bloc Québécois (24 per cent). The NDP log just six per cent of decided voters in Quebec.

Enns described the Liberal growth in Quebec as “astronomical.”

“I can’t remember the last time they were 40 per cent in Quebec, and that’s largely at the expense of the Bloc Québécois,” Enns said. (The Conservatives haven’t declined much in Quebec — they hover traditionally just shy of 25 per cent support.)

In seat-rich Ontario, Leger finds the Liberals have 44 per cent support, a two-point lead over the Conservatives, with the NDP landing at nine per cent support.

It’s only in the Prairie provinces where the Conservatives maintain commanding leads. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 52 per cent of voters say they’ll cast a ballot for the Conservatives, compared to 40 per cent who say they’ll vote Liberal. The New Democrats, despite having an NDP provincial government in Manitoba, are in dire straits in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with just five per cent support.

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In Alberta, the Liberals languish at just 31 per cent support, compared to 55 per cent support for the Conservatives and 11 per cent for the New Democrats.

In British Columbia, which recently saw a close provincial election between the provincial New Democrats and the upstart B.C. Conservatives, the Liberals maintain a nine-point lead, with 46 per cent support, compared to 37 per cent for the Conservatives. Only 13 per cent of British Columbians intend to vote for Singh’s party.

“They’ve (the Liberals) really chewed away at that NDP vote in British Columbia,” said Enns.

The Conservatives still retain a lead amongst Canadian men: Forty-three per cent of men say they’ll vote Conservative, compared to 40 per cent who say they’ll vote Liberal. Among women, who tend to vote more progressive, 45 per cent say they’ll vote Liberal compared to 34 per cent who say they plan to vote Conservative.

For more than a year, one of the dominant storylines from Canadian polling has been the growing Conservative support among young Canadians, who’ve been especially affected by cost-of-living increases and diminishing hopes for home ownership. In September 2024, a Leger poll showed that among 18 to 34 year olds, 47 per cent planned to vote Conservative, compared to just 14 per cent who planned to vote Liberal.

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That gap has vanished. The Liberals and Conservatives are now neck-and-neck at 38 per cent support. The only age group in which the Conservatives retain a lead is those aged 35 to 54, with 43 per cent planning to vote Conservative compared to 37 per cent who plan to vote Liberal. (In October 2024, 45 per cent planned to vote Conservative while 21 per cent planned to vote Liberal.)

Among those aged 55 and older, 49 per cent plan to vote Liberal compared to 35 per cent who plan to vote Conservative.

At least part of the story here is a collapse in support across demographics for the NDP. Back in October, 23 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 were going to vote NDP, along with 18 per cent of those aged 35 to 54 and 12 per cent of those aged 55 and older. NDP support has collapsed to 11 per cent, 10 per cent and six per cent respectively.

“It’s that collapse in the NDP really, and the fact that, for potentially a variety of reasons, the Liberals seem to be the spot where a lot of that vote has shifted,” said Enns.

The polling was done between March 14 and March 16, among 1,568 respondents to an online survey. The results have been weighted according to age, gender, mother tongue, region, education and presence of children in the household in order to ensure a representative sample of the Canadian population. A probability sample of this size would yield a margin of error no greater than  plus or minus 2.47 per cent.

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