Conservatives bet on a ballot question that was bound to backfire.

By asking voters to compare Carney with Trudeau, they ended up showcasing how different the new Liberal leader was from his predecessor.

This was supposed to be a time when incumbents had no chance of re-election.

Post-Covid economies made voters mad about the cost of living, worried about the cost of government, and fed up with of being told how to think and act. They wanted more freedom, lower costs and less taxation. People wanted a political leader who was focused on helping them, not improving them.

Longer term goals social and environmental goals? A tomorrow problem.

The gaze of the country had narrowed and drawn nearer in time.

All of that meant enormous tailwinds for the Conservatives. A super majority seemed inevitable.

Until incumbency was no longer on the ballot.

The Conservatives tried hard to persuade voters that Mark Carney was ‘Just like Justin’. Of the roughly dozen attacks they tried to shape public perceptions of the new Liberal leader – this was the one that failed most spectacularly. More importantly, it might have been the single worst strategic choice the Conservatives made in this campaign.

Poilievre tried to push hard to have a particular ballot question on the minds of voters – that if you had planned to vote against Trudeau, you should vote against Carney – because they were no different.

It was a miscalculation, because it was a ballot question they were bound to lose.

Whether you like Justin Trudeau or don’t, you knew pretty quickly that he and Mark Carney were not very alike.

The two men had very different backgrounds, priorities, interests, life histories, work experiences. Their personal styles are quite different, as is their manner of speaking. One was born into the political life; the other was 60 before he put his foot in the political water.

Throughout 2024, some Liberals were skeptical about Mark Carney’s political ambition, and doubtful about his political skills. They worried he might be very different from Justin Trudeau, and that discontinuity seemed risky, even though being 25 points behind the Conservatives probably called for some risk taking.

But, it took only 43 days for Carney to sweep 87% of votes in that leadership race. He was an outsider, promising a new approach, and defeating two veteran Trudeau Cabinet Ministers along the way. He stood out, in no small part, because he was different from what had come before. Voters took note, and the Liberal Party support started to climb.

Now, a lot of commentary around this election has focused on whether people wanted change, or someone who would stand up to Trump. Of course, the answer was both.

If Trudeau had remained Liberal leader, Pierre Poilievre would be picking a Cabinet today. But even though Trudeau was gone, Poilievre couldn’t resist trying to recreate the fight that he had counted on, but was no longer to be.

While Conservatives pressed voters to see that Carney and Trudeau were indiscernible from each other, voters didn’t buy it. The Conservative effort seemed internally incoherent too – because when they weren’t saying Carney=Trudeau, they were trying to cut him down by talking about his career and educational experiences, neither of which resembled those of Justin Trudeau.

In the end, Carney benefitted from the Conservatives pushing voters to ‘choose change’.

The Conservative campaign spent millions inviting fence sitting voters to take a good look at Carney, and so they did. They came away with largely positive impressions, and a sense that his Liberal Party would be different than the one they had grown tired of.

The Conservatives bet heavily on a ballot question they were bound to lose, once Carney became the Liberal leader. Did they do it because they were just too frustrated at having lost the fight they wanted, or did they truly not see that Carney and Trudeau were quite different? As the Conservatives dig into the lessons to take away from this fascinating election, that may be a question worth exploring

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