As questions loom over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership, a new Nanos Research poll commissioned for CTV News says a quarter of Canadians say none of the potential Liberal leadership candidates appeal to them.
The survey offered people a selection of potential candidates to lead the party, including the current leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and a range of cabinet ministers and other high-profile Canadians. Of those polled, most selected “none of the above.”
The poll also found that among those surveyed, former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney is the most appealing leadership candidate with 18 per cent support, followed by Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland who are tied at 11 per cent.
Carney is currently serving as the Liberal party’s economic advisor and has said he plans to enter elected politics but won’t say when or what job he wants.
This seems like a stupid poll, and a stupid spin to put on it. Surely the 26% are just people who would never vote Liberal?
And for the rest of the results, it’s going to be almost entirely down to name recognition, save for Trudeau.
The graphic for context
For anyone struggling to parse the graph as I was: look at the red bars below the photos. The photos are irrelevant from the data.
…I really did not expect to see Christy Clark on that list, even if at only 4%. If I’d seen her running as a Con, that would not have surprised me so much. Responsible in BC for legislating striking teachers back to work with the argument that they could not legally bargain on topics like class size, something that much later finally got thrown out by the supreme court. She was a member of the BC Liberals, which were really the right-wing party in BC at the time.
I’d wager both left- and right-leaning people in BC have some bad memories of that one for differing reasons. I certainly have to imagine she’d be a quick way to lose the existing liberal voters here.
Is it though? I find the conclusions you drew along with the poll numbers useful. E.g. we have some idea who’s winning the name recognition contest.☺️