By Bruce Anderson

October 14, 2026

Some conservatives believe they struggle to win elections because of media bias. Some say it’s because they are unfairly maligned by people on the left.

These points are debatable, but to me they are a distraction from the real reasons Conservatives are finding it hard to get traction today.

Voters prioritize economic policy, keeping taxes down, and promoting trade and investment. These should all be tailwinds for Conservative parties.

So why have the federal Conservatives fallen 19 points behind the federal Liberals?

The most obvious answer is that voters feel Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre does not compare well with Liberal Leader Mark Carney. You can choose from a wide variety of survey results, perhaps the clearest were in this week’s Nanos data: 61% -21% is the current gap between Carney and Poilievre on the “first choice for PM” question.

I don’t think I‘ve ever seen a gap that wide.

But to focus too much on that is to miss the deeper reason that people hesitate to vote Conservative.

It’s because people can see inside the Conservative tent. And when they do, they see too many people championing ideas they want nothing to do with.

The experience with Danielle Smith in Alberta is instructive. Electing a government that includes a good number of separatists is a reminder of the value of looking under the flap and peering into the tent before election day.

Smith is a tepid federalist and a sympathetic shoulder for separatists. If she has strong views, she conceals them well.

It’s unpleasant to watch, but it should inspire other Conservatives to grapple with the prescription that former Conservative Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has laid out. Speaking about the separatists in the Alberta United Conservative Party (UCP), he said, “They’re welcome to participate in democracy, but if their primary goal is separation, then they have to do it in a separatist party.”

It sounds pleasant enough to say you welcome all views under cover of believing in free speech, but it’s not good enough if you want to be competitive in most elections.

For the federal party, the battle with the Trump Administration has brought these questions to a head.

Why? Because admiration for Trump while he threatens Canada isn’t a policy position. It reads to most voters as not being on Canada’s side, which puts it in the same family as separatism.

Here’s what I see in our Spark Insights data:

• A third of Poilievre voters think “Trump is the best President the US has ever had”. And “Trump is bending the world to his will and creating good outcomes for Americans.”
• Thirty-two per cent of federal Conservative voters in Alberta say they’ll vote to have a binding referendum on separation. A quarter of Alberta’s federal Conservative voters want the province to separate and another 16% aren’t really sure. Meanwhile, 90% of NDP and Liberal voters are sure, and want to stay in Canada.

These are some recent examples, but this challenge has been clear for a good while now, whether the topic of the moment is vaccines, climate change, Brexit, same sex marriage, barbaric cultural practices snitch line, and so on.

MPs like Dean Allison pushing an inquiry into COVID vaccines, or Jamil Jivani dismissing Canadian outrage at Trump as a “hissy fit” — these are the kind of stunts that once would have drawn stiff discipline from a leader focused on winning.

But, like Alberta’s Smith, Ottawa’s Poilievre prefers to look away. The MAGA-coded, far-right faction is big enough that it can feel like you can’t win with it, but maybe can’t win without it.

It’s possible that Conservatives could win even if they ignore the problem of being flypaper for these unpopular ideas. Gravity is inescapable for even the most popular governments when people decide they want change. But when people wanted change in 2025, the Liberals offered change, and voters said let’s give it a go.

It’s not a safe bet that the next time people want change, likely sometime in the next decade, the Liberals will have nothing to say.

In the U.S., the Democratic Party is facing a challenge as the days to the mid-terms wind down. To win more votes in the mainstream, their candidates are having to declare which progressive sentiments and ideas they do or don’t embrace. It’s a healthy tension.

To be competitive in Canada, Conservatives have a bigger challenge.

Being keen on Trump and soft on Canada are not the same as a policy preference for reducing gas taxes versus subsidizing heat pumps.

People have seen what happens when you don’t pay enough attention to what kind of Conservative you elect. And they’ll be anxious to avoid the mistake that America has made. Twice.

Policy Contributor Bruce Anderson is Founding Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of Spark Advocacy. He has been a pollster, political strategist and communications advisor for more than 40 years and is a regular on The Bridge podcasts.