Pierre Poilievre will return to the House of Commons this fall after winning the August 18 Battle River-Crowfoot by-election with a little over 80 percent of the vote, consistent with past Conservative results in the riding. The by-election represents an early step in his political recovery after losing the 2025 general election and his Carleton-Poilievre seat to Mark Carney's Liberals. The Conservative constitution requires a leader defeated in a general election to submit to a membership confidence vote, scheduled for the national convention in Calgary in January 2026. Post-election Angus Reid Institute polling shows many voters, including some Conservative supporters, agreed with comparisons between Poilievre and Donald Trump, which opponents used to question his capacity to defend Canadian interests.
The by-election, however, was only the first-and easiest-step on Poilievre's long road to political recovery. Pre-election polls last winter showed that while he remained a polarizing figure in Canadian politics, he nevertheless enjoyed overwhelming backing from Conservative voters. But after losing the 2025 general election to Mark Carney's Liberals-along with his own long-held seat in Carleton-Poilievre may now face his harshest critics from his own side of the aisle, and from what once seemed like an unshakable base.
One of the themes Carney's Liberals surfed on during the campaign was the threat posed to Canada's economy and sovereignty coming from south of the border, and more specifically from U.S. President Donald Trump. Many Liberals argued that a politician running a mostly negative campaign and who "sounds like Donald Trump" couldn't defend Canada's interests in this conflict. According to ARI's numbers, this Trump-Poilievre comparison had a lot of voters nodding, including a non-negligible fraction of Conservatives supporters.
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