Trump goes and a Democrat occupies the White House? Carney still leads, poll says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Many Canadians and Americans have at least one thing in common: They’d like to see someone other than Donald Trump in the White House.

In the United States, this bias largely falls along partisan lines, but in Canada, resentment over the president’s “51st state” rhetoric and punishing trade tariffs is held by a majority of people. Polls show that majorities of Conservative, Liberal, and NDP supporters disapprove of Trump’s leadership and are critical of how he has treated Canada.

Geopolitical experts have long credited the rise and electoral success of Prime Minister Mark Carney to Trump’s second term and the president’s fiery approach to trade with Canada. After all, the Liberals were running more than 20 percentage points behind the Conservatives in late 2024, just before the trade war kicked off.

It might stand to reason that a Democrat in the Oval Office would calm Canadian jitters about U.S. leadership and tensions between the two countries — and that this might lead to a revival for Conservative support. But Abacus Data recently put this hypothetical to Canadians and their voter intentions, which currently favour the Liberal party over the Conservative party, 45 to 36 per cent, remained unchanged. Asked how they would vote in a federal election if Trump were no longer president and a Democrat were in office, 44 per cent said Liberal, and 36 per cent said Conservative.

This suggests that U.S. leadership changes alone cannot significantly sway Canadian voters amid bilateral trade tensions.

“In the current context … there is widespread favourability towards the prime minister, to his government,” said David Coletto, founder and CEO of Abacus Data. “And I think that suggests that if you just remove Trump from it tomorrow, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the game completely changes in Canada.”

For now, Coletto says the political calculus doesn’t change that much for Canadians without Trump because they still tend to see Carney as best placed to handle the government’s responsibilities.

Trade watchers see the respondents’ lack of change in the survey as a sign of Trump’s deep political impact, which has driven a surge in nationalism.

The polling reflects the historically high anti-Americanism in Canada, according to Andrew Hale, senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom.

“The poll is a reaction to the anti‑American sentiment in Canada right now. Trump is so unpopular in Canada,” Hale said, noting that U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra is probably the next most unpopular figure there.

Frank Graves, founder of EKOS Research, says Trump has been such a shock that Canadian voters aren’t yet ready to hit reset. The shift to Liberal support, in other words, is already priced into the political landscape — a landscape overshadowed by Trump — so much so that a simple candidate swap doesn’t magically undo the damage.

But just because views and presumptions are baked in doesn’t mean they will stay that way.

“I don’t think everything’s frozen in granite … there’s all kinds of potential areas where we could see movement again,” Graves said.

Hale agrees, saying the numbers are a snapshot of sentiment today, not a predictor of eternal hostility.

Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, a trade consultancy, points to Canadians’ anger and sense of betrayal by the United States under Donald Trump, noting that many likely struggle to imagine the U.S. ever returning to a normal or stable relationship with Canada.

In Canada, there’s a “sense of anger, frustration, and fear — the sense that the U.S. has irreparably gone off the deep end is such that, that people cannot imagine that the U.S. will return to something like normalcy as they would see it.”

“If your view is that the U.S. is kind of permanently on a trajectory which is very different from your own … it’s hard to imagine that you’re going to vote for a political party that suggests rapprochement and closer cooperation.”

A presidential swap would need to be coupled with policy changes and rhetoric that assuage those fears, Coletto notes.

“A change in leadership in the United States would also have to change the threat that people perceive from Washington,” he said, adding that few Canadians are likely to perceive the U.S. relationship differently unless that happens. If the underlying sense of threat from Washington remains, then voters are unlikely to change their minds.

While Carney’s early success was driven by Trump’s resurgence, he has since built enough goodwill to stand on his own — for now. But experts agree new U.S. leadership could shift dynamics over time, if paired with real policy changes.

Hale argues that just about anyone else in the White House would help repair the relationship.

“If there were anyone other than Trump in the White House, regardless of party, I think that would be the road to perhaps more harmonious relations with Canada and more productive relations.”

Miller, however, notes that the old relationship is gone for good.

“The way that things have been done heretofore is not coming back,” he said. “It’s not returning … people want to move away from the U.S. very strongly, and they feel angered and disrespected.”

“This is not an easy or simple thing to resolve, and is unlikely to get resolved as long as the major source of a lot of this tension remains in place.”

While this means strong support for Carney at home, the anti-American sentiment — which Hales says the Liberals have weaponized for electoral gains — can backfire for Ottawa in other ways. Making concessions to the U.S. in this environment, for example, could be political suicide.

“Anything that looks like you’re giving a concession to Donald Trump is something that is viewed with deep suspicion in Canada,” said Miller.

“Canada’s scope and ability to even make concessions in the negotiations is such that they don’t have a lot of room to do that.”

National Post

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