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His wife, Anaida Poilievre, openly cried as she and her husband waved goodbye to the crowd that welcomed them with cheers and chants.

This is the riding where Poilievre was first elected in 2004. He won it for the seventh time in 2021 with 50 per cent of the votes cast. It was supposed to be among the safest sets in the country the party. 

But in the final week of the campaign, the Conservatives were pulling volunteers from other ridings to push the vote in Carleton, as even it was turning into a close contest with the Liberals.

It is just one of the things about this election campaign that has come as a surprise to even the most plugged-in political observers.

“It’s been a wild election that has not played out how I thought it would play out by any stretch of the imagination,” said Amanda Galbraith, a partner at Oyster Group and a former adviser to Stephen Harper.

”(U.S. President Donald) Trump as the X-factor has been fascinating. Watching the campaigns play off of that — or try not to — has been fascinating to me.”

Trump’s tariffs and his repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state were constant features of the campaign. 

With fear and anxiety over the U.S.‘s latest geopolitical manoeuvres growing in Canada, the Liberals pitched leader Mark Carney as the one best suited to dealing with the mercurial president. And the message resonated in ways the Conservatives could not have predicted just a few months earlier.

Poilievre wanted to talk about anything but Trump unless the news cycle forced them to. Poilievre’s campaign instead pumped out a steady stream of slogans with a central theme of voting for change after what he called “the lost Liberal decade.”

He held more than two dozen rallies, drawing in hundreds, even thousands, of supporters.

Galbraith said the Conservative campaign was well-executed but the campaign team “struggled at points to meet the moment when it comes to Trump.”

For two months leading into the campaign Trump took Canadians on a wild ride of threatened tariffs, pauses and repeated insistence that this country would be better off as a U.S. state. Canadians responded en masse, cancelling U.S. travel plans, and shunning U.S. products, even booing the U.S. national anthem at sporting events in an explosion of Maple Leaf pride.

Just five days into the campaign, Trump announced 25 per cent tariffs on vehicles made outside the U.S. and demanded that automakers relocate their production to the United States.

Carney, who paused his campaign to return to Parliament Hill and meet with cabinet ministers and business advisers as the prime minister, responded by saying Canada’s old relationship with the U.S. was over, and promising billions to help the auto industry and its workers.

“We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States,” he said.

Poilievre’s policy announcement that day promised that a Conservative government would increase the annual limit on tax-free savings accounts. He paused only briefly during his daily statement to address the tariffs.

“My message to President Trump is, knock it off,” he said.

Lori Turnbull, a professor in the faculty of management at Dalhousie University, said that was a key moment just four days into the race.

“I think this election, more than any I’ve ever watched, is about who is going to be the prime minister,” she said.

And on that front, Turnbull said, “Poilievre was the wrong candidate for this moment, and (the Conservatives) couldn’t have seen that coming and they could not have changed it.”

Poilievre has spent the better part of three years developing a strong narrative against the opponents he expected to face: former prime minister Justin Trudeau and the carbon price and the rising cost of living. 

He “spoke directly to people who are feeling left out of Trudeau’s vision for the country,” Turnbull said, and was a highly effective opposition leader.

The way he held the Liberal government to account resonated with Jason Shoji, who attended a Conservative rally in Oakville, Ont., on Sunday morning.

“I really like how he talks in the House of Commons, he just speaks in really simple language, just like ‘Yes or no? What’s the exact number?’” he said.

That pointed style of opposition helped build up a 25-point Conservative lead in the polls earlier this year that looked unshakable.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper, talking to an American podcaster in January, said it would be almost impossible for a new Liberal leader to turn the tide.

“It would require a miracle on their part and some kind of disaster on our part, and Pierre is a smart enough politician, I just don’t see those things happening,” he said.

Polling firm Leger’s latest national survey on Saturday suggested the Liberals have a four-point lead over the Conservatives nationally heading into voting day.

Many Conservative supporters don’t believe it. At events in the campaign’s final days, some predicted a “blue wave.”

“I think that people are very manipulated by media and stories that are put out there for propaganda, and I think we are going to show them that there’s a silent majority, that there’s people that are desperate for change,” said Ashleigh Pelser, who was the rally in Oakville. 

Joelle Weil, who hosted Poilievre’s event at her family’s farm in Keene, Ont., on Sunday afternoon, said she was feeling nervous about the election.

Margaret Siddall, who came to the event from Peterborough, was also feeling anxious and said she thinks there will be protests and unrest if the Conservatives don’t win. 

“Part of me is hopeful that the media is wrong and I’m hoping he does it,” she said.

Galbraith said if there is a path to victory for the Conservatives, it’s a narrow one. The numbers in the national polls are tightening, but she said “if you look at the regional numbers, it’s not in the places that would benefit the Conservatives.”

Many have questioned why Poilievre, who earned a reputation over the last two decades in Ottawa as a skilled political attack dog, never turned those sharp attacks against Trump.

“Canadians are very frustrated by what has happened over the last decade with the Liberal government, and there’s lots of ways to prosecute that. But to me, you need to sound angrier at the U.S. president than you do at the Liberal leader,” Galbraith said.

On the brighter side, she pointed out, Conservative support is actually quite high, according to polls. Leger’s poll suggests 39 per cent of Canadians support Poilievre’s party.

That’s roughly the same percentage that won Harper a majority in 2011. The major difference this time is that support for the NDP, and to a lesser extent the Bloc Québécois, has cratered.

“No matter what, should the Liberals form government on Monday, there will a lot of soul searching and within the party on a path forward,” Galbraith said. 

— With files from Cassandra Szklarski in Oakville, Ont., and Catherine Morrison in Keene, Ont.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2025.