New polling has found that if Canada had an election today, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would fair pretty well.
Conducted by independent polling website 338Canada on January 8, projections suggest Canada could likely have a Tory minority government in the event of a snap election held right now.
The site, run by political commentator and poli sci professor P.J.Fournier, predicts that the current Conservative Party could win 35% of the popular vote in Canada, with a 4% margin of error.
Compared to the predicted Liberal party popular vote of 31% with the same margin of error, the Tories seem to have the edge.
Of course, how that translates to seats in Canada's parliament is what really determines who becomes prime minister.
This poll projects that we could see about 144 Conservative seats and 137 Liberal seats in Ottawa, which would mean a Conservative minority in parliament.
These projections were a result of 338Canada's "statistical model of electoral projections based on opinion polls, electoral history, and demographic data."
And of course, nothing is set in stone and these predictions are just that – predictions.
But, right now, the odds are in Poilievre's favour, with the poll giving the Conservative Party of Canada a 55% chance of winning the most seats, as opposed to the Liberal Party's odds of 44%.
From these projections, the site also suggests that we would have a 47% chance of getting a Conservative minority government – the most seats but not a majority – with the odds of a Liberal minority sitting at 44%.
Whereas the third major party in Canada, Jagmeet Singh's NDP, would likely garner only about 21% of the popular vote, with a margin of error of 3%. This would translate to about 26 seats, according to the projections.
All these projections could shift as time goes on, especially given that Canada is not due for a scheduled election until 2025. And, of course, a whole lot can change in two years.
If nothing else, this does bode well for the new leader of the Conservatives, despite being someone who's both dished out and received scathing criticism from other federal leaders.
