Elections and the strategy of ballot questions

Opinion

Welcome to the upside-down election.

Once up in the polls, Conservatives are now down. Once down in the polls, Liberals are now up.

What was foregone is now just gone. A widely expected Conservative government is not just at risk but might be out of reach altogether.

One week in and we have a radically different election than anybody predicted.

Two factors — Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump — have upended all earlier predictions for how Canada’s 45^th general election would play out. Trudeau’s departure has relieved the Liberal government of its worst asset — his dismal unpopularity. Trump’s economic and annexationist threats against us have relieved the Conservatives of its best asset — the time for a change argument.

Every election turns on who can best set and win their “ballot question.” That is the question voters will have uppermost in their minds when they cast their ballot. Policies and platforms, slogans and ads, tours and events, are all designed to planting the ballot question you favour.

Conservatives had nailed their question “Do you want change or Trudeau?” to the Justin Trudeau mast. But then that ship sailed under a new captain named Mark Carney, taking their preferred ballot question with it.

Canadians are tuning into a new and different ballot question about “Who is the best leader to deal with Donald Trump?” That advantages the Carney Liberals.

No party gives up its ballot question without a fight. Campaign slogans are the most visible means of promoting your ballot question.

Pierre Poilievre launched his campaign with a new slogan: Canada First: For a Change. This is the Conservatives’ attempt to curb Trump with their own Canada First brand of nationalism. And retain the “change” argument by tacking “for a change” on to it.

Mark Carney, meanwhile, is playing his own nationalism card with slogans like Canada Strong and Protecting Canada. His advantage is that “love of country” is now trumping “time for change.”

Not to deny that the Conservatives are in many ways running a strong campaign. Substantive platform announcements and sizable rallies are keeping them in the news and keeping their support. The party entered this campaign with its strongest base support of the past three campaigns.

The Conservative challenge isn’t just regaining the ballot question. They are challenged by a precipitous decline in voting support for the NDP who are now down to single digits in most polls. You need a telescope to find them.

That spells ironic trouble for Conservatives. Ironic because having presented strongly polarizing rhetoric and choices over the past couple of years, they are now themselves being victimized by a polarized electorate, courtesy of Donald Trump.

Call it polarizing payback.

The result today is a two-party race with less potential vote-splitting, which traditionally is the best path to a Conservative victory given their minority share of voters in the country.

The race now is to the middle. The centre of the electorate holds sway, not the margins. Swing voters, not committed voters, will be the key to victory.

The previous Conservative strategy of mobilizing its own vote to turn out in target ridings, while allowing Liberals and New Democrats to split their votes, will likely prove insufficient. The Conservative campaign needs to convince soft Liberals and left-of-centre Canadians to come their way, a tough sell in a normally inaccessible demographic. Especially after marketing yourself as unapologetically conservative all this time with all that entails.

Progressive conservatives anywhere, anyone?

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Election Extra

During Elections

Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election.

Sign up for Election Extra

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Winning politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. So, if the game has changed, does that mean the game is over?

In a word, no. The upside of down for the Conservatives is that they are strongly holding their vote and there’s still a lot of game yet to be played including what will prove to be two important televised leaders’ debates. If there is an X factor, it remains Mark Carney’s campaign performance and whether he will make a major mistake allowing Pierre Poilievre to regain the initiative.

None of that though looks to change the emerging ballot question which is heavily invested in and around Donald Trump and Canadian nationalism. Poilievre wants to wrench it back to “change.” Carney wants to keep it on “Trump.”

The campaign arm-wrestling between the two on setting the winning ballot question will determine the outcome of this election.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.