Campaign mistakes were made, but none that 'changed the outcome,' says top Conservative operative

OTTAWA — Three months after the federal election, Pierre Poilievre’s top advisor Jenni Byrne has broken her silence over the party’s failed bid to form government.

Byrne, a top Conservative operative and Poilievre ally, has been praised for her role in the party leader’s meteoric rise in the polls during the Justin Trudeau era but also criticized for her role in the last federal election that saw the Liberals elected once again.

For the first time since the April 28 election, Byrne spoke at length about the experience on the Beyond a Ballot podcast hosted by Rachael Segal.

Here are five things we learned about the sometimes venerated, often feared and much discussed Conservative operative who was Polievre’s last campaign director.

All campaign managers have regrets after a campaign, especially after losing the election.

Byrne is no exception, though her response to the question about what she would do over was notable not because of what she listed, but because she said nothing she would do over in hindsight would ultimately have changed the result.

“I have a few do overs. None of them, I think, would have changed the outcome,” she told Segal.

Reading between the lines suggests that Byrne feels like the loss to the Liberals may have been inevitable during an election centred mainly around U.S. President Donald Trump. Earlier in the podcast, she said that making the campaign about Trump would have also played into the Liberals’ hands.

“I think if we had gone down that road, it would have been an extremely bad mistake,” she said of having Poilievre focus more on Trump.

In terms of do overs, Byrne cited two key regrets: realizing sooner that Poilievre might lose his longtime riding of Carleton (though “I’m not sure what we could have done about it at the time”) and making some different budgeting, personnel and campaign issue decisions.

Byrne said people often say she likes to run a political show singlehandedly but argued that it’s untrue that she did everything herself during the spring campaign.

Byrne is frequently described as the key driving force behind Poilievre, from the moment he ran for leadership up until the last federal election.

She’s also been the target of much ire internally since election day on April 28, with many Conservative insiders and caucus members blaming her for the loss after dominating the Justin Trudeau-led Liberals in the polls for roughly 18 months.

But she was far from alone on the team, Byrne told Segal.

“If they think that like I was like a one-person machine who was making every decision, ran the campaign by myself like I was some Rasputin or Svengali, then they don’t know how campaigns are run. They don’t know Pierre, they don’t know senior-level people that we had in the campaign,” she argued.

“Some would say I’m aggressive. I actually don’t think I’m that aggressive, or at least, I’ve mellowed in my older years,” she also said.

Asked about Byrne’s statement in confidence, two former campaign operatives scoffed.

After holding key roles in the 2011, 2015 and 2025 federal elections, Byrne said she’s taking a step back from a top official role come the next national campaign.

The current advisor to Poilievre said that someone else will run the next Conservative campaign and she had no idea who that would be.

“I speak to people on a daily basis, and I’m going to… continue to do that. But I’ve stepped back from the day to day and and I’m not going to run the next campaign,” she said.

She also sounded surprised by the amount of attention she’s received as campaign director since the election.

“I do find it strange or perplexing that in all the years that I’ve been involved in politics, I’ve never seen post-campaign analysis focused on a campaign manager as much as what it has on me.”

Poilievre may have attracted thousands at his campaign rallies — a fact he frequently flaunted during the campaign — that’s not where Byrne was most comfortable.

In fact, Byrne said she doesn’t like large gatherings all that much personally.

“I think I’m actually, on a personal level, pretty much of a homebody. I don’t like going out in crowds. I can count on one hand in the last five years how many receptions that I’ve been to,” she said.

But one thing she does like is the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, which may come as a surprise for someone who grew up in Fenelon Falls, Ont., in the Kawartha Lakes area.

Rarely do glasses and t-shirts make national headlines, but they did when Poilievre decided to ditch the former and don the latter earlier this year as part of a pre-campaign aesthetic makeover.

Byrne says she had no role in Poilievre’s decision to ditch the glasses and added that he’s always been a fan of working out.

“Literally nothing to do with me,” she said. “He said privately and publicly that Anna (Poilievre) prefers him without glasses,” she told Segal.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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