Commentary

Voters may dislike Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, but they don't fear or despise him

by Charlie Smith on July 16th, 2019 at 12:24 PM
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      With fewer than 100 days until the next federal election, the Liberals, NDP, and Greens all have a problem.

      That's because, according to the Angus Reid Institute, the Conservatives have remained stubbornly high in the polls all year.

      The most recent survey shows them at 38 percent, within spitting distance of forming a majority government.

      With Andrew Scheer as leader, the Conservatives have not been below 37 percent all year among decided and leaning voters in any of the Angus Reid polls.

      Meanwhile, the Liberals are languishing at 30 percent, which is an improvement over the three previous polls.

      The New Democrats are at 14 percent and the Greens have the support of 10 percent.

      Justin Trudeau's personal photographer always tries to put him in a good light, but it doesn't appear to have stemmed the growing tide of public frustration with the prime minister.
      Adam Scotti

      Only 33 percent think Scheer would be the best prime minister, but he's still ahead of Justin Trudeau (24 percent), Elizabeth May (11 percent), and Jagmeet Singh (eight percent).

      Contrast that with Scheer's predecessor, Stephen Harper, who had the highest disapproval rating of all federal leaders shortly before the 2015 election campaign.

      People don't hate or fear Scheer with anywhere near the passion that they felt about Harper four years ago.

      Scheer's critics can label him as "Harper with dimples" to try to scare the public. But to many voters, he looks like a relatively harmless former insurance broker—"Average Andy".

      That could spell the end of the Trudeau government unless it can cling to power in a minority with the support of the Greens and/or the NDP.

      If Jagmeet Singh doesn't catch fire with Canadian voters soon, the NDP might start looking for a new leader after the election.
      Jagmeet Singh

      The Liberals had a chance to dump Trudeau during the SNC-Lavalin scandal, which might have put them on a stronger footing going into this election.

      But they didn't do that. As a result, it appears that Canada's "natural governing party" will have a fairly unpopular leader going into the campaign.

      It will be interesting to see how the Liberals cope with that.

      Will they highlight their candidates and downplay their limelight-loving leader in TV ads?

      Or will they do whatever they can to discredit Scheer in the short time before voters go back to the polls?

      One can only imagine what's going on in the minds of Liberal backroom operators now that their former star attraction, Justin Trudeau, has become a political liability.

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