Most Canadians disapprove of Justin Trudeau but one group still supports him

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been growing increasingly unpopular with voters in Canada for several years, but it now looks like the vast majority of Canadians disapprove of the country’s leader according to the latest polling. 

Trudeau is only really popular among a small subset of his hardcore Liberal Party voters based on recent polling from Leger and Postmedia. It found just about every voting bloc in the country disapproved of Trudeau's performance as PM. 

How bad was the data? Well, National Post’s Tristan Hopper pointed out in his reporting on the survey findings that “disapproval of Trudeau was the one issue that united every conceivable demographic in roughly equal margins.”

Things really did look dire for the Prime Minister based on Leger’s polling results. Both Men and women disapproved of Trudeau (65% and 64%). Even rural and urban voters agreed (71% and 64%) on their disapproval of the Prime Minister. 

One of the most interesting discoveries made by the new polling found that disapproval of Trudeau extended past age barriers. Voters under 35 years old were as disapproving of Trudeau as the country’s senior voters (66% and 64%).

The only group of voters who didn’t disapprove of Trudeau’s performance in office were those who identified themselves as Liberal Party supporters. 83% of this group said that they supported Trudeau compared to just 15% that said they disapproved. 

Among the voters who said they supported the other major left-leaning federal party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), they largely indicated that they disapproved of the Prime Minister with 57% saying so compared to 37% who approved. 

Leger Executive Vice-President of the Eastern Canada team Sébastien Dallaire noted in an email to the National Post about the public opinion polling firm's recent survey results that while the “partisan split is not unusual, it is particularly marked at the moment.” 

“Supporters of the NDP, the Bloc, or the Greens, were not as sour about the Liberal government until 2023. Since then, this partisan split has held steady,” Dallaire added.

Leger also revealed that only 24% of the 1,562 Canadians that they surveyed between September 6th and the 8th expressed the intention to vote for the Liberal candidate in their riding in the next federal election. 

“While this isn’t quite the lowest the Liberals have ranked in an opinion poll, it still puts them in line for a gutting defeat at the hands of the Conservatives in the next election,” Tristin Hopper noted about Canadian voting intentions. 

The Leger survey also found that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party had the support of 44% of respondents, something Sébastien Dallaire noted put Poilievre and his party “in clear majority territory.”

A more recent Leger survey conducted between September 20th and the 22nd found that 64% of the 1,556 Canadians surveyed disapproved of the job Justin Trudeau has done as Prime Minister and 54% thought the Conservatives would win the next election.  

Leger hasn’t been the only polling firm to publish stark findings about Justin Trudeau’s disapproval among Canadian voters. On September 16th, Ipsos revealed the results of a survey that found 67% of the 1,001 voters it surveyed were dissatisfied with Trudeau. 

“Around two-thirds (67%) of Canadians now disapprove of Justin Trudeau's leadership as Prime Minister, an increase of 4 points since June,” Iposos noted in a report on its findings. 

Approval is at a new low with only one-third (33%) saying they approve of Trudeau's leadership (-4 points since June),” Ipsos added. These poll findings should be all the more trouble for the Liberals now that a federal election is more likely following the collapse of the Liberal’s supply-and-confidence deal with the NDP.

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