It's Raining Men

Liberal support is up in 2026. Where are they making gains?

The world is a very different place than it was in the fall of 2025. There’s a war in Iran. We’ve been to the moon and back. Zendaya got a new haircut.

The Canadian political landscape has also shifted dramatically. Avi Lewis leads the NDP. Marilyn Gladhu is a Liberal. Mark Carney has his majority.

Not only is his seat count up, but so are Carney’s poll numbers. Last November, I rolled up a a few surveys to analyze support levels by demographic groups. My conclusion then was that things hadn’t changed much since the federal election. The Liberals were up a bit among men and the Conservatives were up a bit among middle aged voters, but beyond that, it was basically April 28th all over again.

Now, a full year removed from the last election, it feels like the ground really has shifted. So I rolled up a few recent Pollara surveys to build a sample of 5,034 cases¹. Let’s dig in!

Compared to the last election, the Liberals are up 8 in BC, 5 in Alberta, 8 in Saskatchewan, and 4 in Quebec. But basically at 2025 levels everywhere else.

That would translate to a lot of red on the map in places that don’t usually see it:

• Those BC gains are most pronounced outside the Lower Mainland. We have the Liberals just a few points back in the Interior, which would swing all the ridings in Kamlops and the Okanagan their way. 4 Interior BC seats would be unprecedented for them.

• They’re up double digits on Vancouver Island, which would bring in a record 5 or 6 seats there.

• I’ve already done the deep dive on Alberta seats the Liberals could win. This rollup has the Liberals within 5% in Edmonton, which would net them a handful of wins there, to go along with a record 3 Calgary seats.

• We have the Liberals within 7 of the CPC in urban Saskatchewan. That would put 2 Regina seats and 2 Saskatoon seats in play. Remember, the Liberals haven’t won a non-Ralph Goodale seat in urban Saskatchewan since 1993.

• The biggest Liberal gains in Quebec are further away from Montreal. We have them leading in Quebec City, with big gains in eastern and northern Quebec.

What’s interesting about that list is those are basically the parts of the country where Carney surprised people the most on election night. He dominated Quebec, despite having shaky French. He grew the Liberal vote dramatically in Saskatchewan and Alberta, even if it didn’t translate to seats. He won the first Vancouver Island seats for the Liberals in 20 years.

Those wins are looking less and less like flukes. Our polling shows Carney building upon the gains he made in these non-traditional Liberal markets.

Meanwhile, the places where he stalled last election haven’t gotten a lot better. He’s up a point in Southwest Ontario, up two in the 905. Down a point in Newfoundland.

---

Our polling in the last election had the Liberals winning women by 13 points, but the Conservatives winning men by 7. So a 20-point gender gap. As a comparison, I polled a gender gap of 12 points in the 2015 election, 16 points in 2019, and 18 points in 2021.

So 2025 marked the continuation of a long-term trend, probably helped by the collapse of the NDP, who themselves usually poll better among women.

I noted the Liberal-Conservative gender gap starting to close last November (it was down to 11 points then), and it’s now at just 5 points. Looked at another way, Liberal support among women is basically unchanged from the last election, while nearly all of the Liberals’ gains since the last election have come among men.

That tracks.

Trudeau called himself a feminist. He always had women around him in visuals. His policy agenda aligned more with the issues women care about.

Carney has increased defence spending. He’s talked repeatedly about “building things”. I know it’s a stereotype, but polling consistently shows more support for military spending, infrastructure, and pipelines among men than women.

Even Carney’s visuals are male coded. I’ve tested many pictures of many politicians over the years, and women consistently gravitate to images of leaders meeting voters in casual settings, while men gravitate to images of leaders in suits, at a podium or behind a desk.

Look at Carney’s “Forward Guidance” YouTube video from last week. He’s in a suit behind a desk. He talks about military history and shows off an Isaac Brock action figure. I’m fairly sure if Trudeau was giving the same talk, he would have highlighted Laura Secord or Tecumseh.

So Carney has figured out what men want, and it’s paying off for him.² His biggest inroads since the last election are actually among men under 50, a demo Poilievre won by 16 points last year.

So for those wondering why Poilievre is talking kettlebels on Rogan and sitting ringside at UFC when he already dominates among men under 50…the answer is: he used to dominate among men under 50. He doesn’t today.

---

The other demographic where Poilievre really crushed it last election was blue collar workers. That’s how he flipped NDP ridings across southwestern Ontario. Pollara had the CPC wining blue collar workers by 19 points last election - and widening that lead to 29 points last fall. Now? Well, it’s improving for the Liberals, but for a party leading the national vote by 9 points and making gains among men under 50, you’d probably hope for more than a 13-point deficit.

A lot of the things helping Carney with men are also helping him among blue collar workers. But he’s still a banker in a suit, and things like the Davos speech don’t click as much with blue collar Canadians. As I’ve written about before, blue collar workers are looking for tangible outcomes rather than big speeches.

The signature piece of the Spring Economic Update is skills training. I take that as a signal Carney is determined to make further inroads with this demo.

---

When Mark Carney fell short of his majority a year ago, the common wisdom was that the easiest way back to majority for the Liberals would be to “bounce back” among the groups where they stalled in 2025. Basically, throw the Trudeau coalition on top of the new voters Carney brought in.

But Carney has made only modest gains in the 905 over the past year. Our polling shows no progress for him among South Asians. If anything, he’s lost ground among Millennial women.

Rather, Carney has pushed further into territory rarely travelled by Liberal leaders. He now leads by 19 points among men 65+. He’s growing Liberal support in the west and in rural Quebec. He’s even eating into Poilievre’s lead among young men and, to a lesser extent, blue collar workers.

The last election is looking less like a fluke and more like the start of a real demographic realignment.

1. For you methodology nerds, this comes from online surveys fielded between March 29th and April 8th, 2026. The total cases are n= 5,034 eligible voters. Data was weighted by gender, age, education, region, and language (in Quebec). Crosstabs can be found here.

2. I took a random sample of others pollsters’ most recent poll compared to their final election poll. Of the three pollsters I checked, all three show a narrowing gender gap, though none show it narrowing as quickly as we do. And the size of the gender gap varies. But regardless of the magnitude, I’m confident this is a trend, and likely one that will continue, for the reasons discussed.