Poilievre: many Conservatives admire his traits that many other voters dislike.

The Conservative coalition in 2025 includes a lot of younger voters for whom Stephen Harper is not a touchstone.

The blunt review by Dimitri Soudas, the former Director of Communications to Stephen Harper, in the Toronto Star, has touched off a lot of chatter.

Some of it begs the question “what is it that Conservatives see in Poilievre that other people don’t”.

Here are a couple of thoughts, and some fresh data from our latest Spark Advocacy survey.

First, as Mr. Soudas made clear, that not all Conservative voters like Poilievre. Roughly a quarter would replace him. If he wins 75% in his leadership review vote in January, no doubt he will stay on, but that number would be something short of a massive endorsement.

For the Conservatives who support Poilievre, I don’t think they see something that others don’t.. What’s different is that they like what they see, while most other people have just struggled to see the charm.

Soudas’ piece described a schism between Poilievre conservatives and Harper conservatives. I’ve no doubt it’s there, and likely growing as Poilievre tears page after page from the Trump playbook..

Among Canadians as a whole, Stephen Harper - who left office in a cloud of dissatisfaction, and never enjoyed an extremely warm relationship with voters - is more popular than Pierre Poilievre.

This means Poilievre has annoyed more people - without serving a single day as Prime Minister - than Harper did after serving 3233 days.

However, among those who voted Conservative this year, Poilievre is massively more popular than Harper.

Much of this can be explained by comparing the views of those under 30 with those over 60. Among the younger voters, Poilievre is +9; among the older cohort, he’s -24.

In the Conservative bastion of Alberta, Harper is more popular than Poilievre. Poilievre is running about even with Mark Carney in terms of personal popularity, a tepid result for a Conservative leader.

And so, as the weeks tick down to the leadership review in the Conservative Party, it’s no surprise that some Conservatives are speaking out - wondering aloud about the party’s direction, and anchoring principles.

There’s a generation gap, and lots of Trump influences within the Conservative Party. While until recently most of the chatter in Ottawa has been about deep divisions within the NDP, the reality may be that there may be an even bigger internal fracas brewing in the Conservative Party.