Liberal Leadership: Would You Order a Dish You Know Nothing About Off a Menu?
Some thoughts on polling the potential impact of the Liberal leadership candidates
Why We Can’t Easily Estimate Liberal Leadership Candidates’ Broader Appeal (Yet)
Yesterday, Justin Trudeau resigned and initiated a process to select a new Liberal Party leader and prime minister. That decision was inevitable, especially following Chrystia Freeland’s resignation (link)
Speculation and feelers about the next leader and what Canadians think about the potential candidates have started. Today, I want to focus on a fundamental question that should shape analysis and speculation about the future: Can we really know how Canadians will respond to any given individual in the role of Liberal leader or Prime Minister?
If you think opinion polls can give you a definitive answer right now, I’d urge you to keep reading. The data I’ve collected in the past simply (and survey data I’m collecting now) doesn’t support any firm conclusions about any of the would-be successors, for one crucial reason: hardly anyone knows who they are.
Is It Just a Name Game?
When we polled Canadians between July 4 and 9, 2024 to gauge how recognizable different federal politicians were with close to 2,000 adults—almost all recognized Prime Minister Trudeau. That’s no surprise: 98% did. Most recognized Jagmeet Singh (84%), and a majority recognized Pierre Poilievre (66%) at the time.
But when we moved into the territory of senior cabinet ministers—people who could plausibly replace Trudeau as Liberal leader—those recognition numbers collapse.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was identified by 39% of respondents when shown her photo. That’s still 61% who drew a blank (that number has dropped since her resignation). And she was the most recognizable of the bunch.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly (20%), Transport Minister Anita Anand (19%), Mark Carney (7%), former Housing Minister Sean Fraser (4%), and former Public Safety Minister and current Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc (4%) were essentially unknown to the vast majority of Canadians. That’s not just a footnote: it’s the key to understanding why leadership polling for Liberals is, at this point, almost meaningless. As is any analysis about the potential each has to expand the Liberal coalition or improve its electoral prospects.
Photos, Names, and Familiarity
We tested recognition in two ways: showing people photos, and (in previous surveys) showing them names. Neither approach significantly boosts a candidate’s profile. So when you see polls asking, “If the next Liberal leader was Mark Carney, would you be more likely to vote Liberal?” those results are primarily measuring whether respondents can attach a face or a name to Mark Carney—and little else. If those questions don’t give respondents the chance to say “I don’t know”, they are even more meaningless.
The underlying issue is that you can’t develop a real impression of someone you know nothing about. If a pollster asks, “Do you like X person as a prospective Liberal leader?” and the respondent draws a blank on who that is, the ensuing opinion might be based on pure guesswork, a reaction perceptions about what that name means, misperceptions about what people “think” they know about the person, or just an association with the word “Liberal.” That’s it. And that’s not a stable foundation for predicting real-world impacts on opinions or behaviours.
It’s a bit like going to a restaurant, seeing a menu that has a few items you recognize and some you have never heard of, can’t pronounce, or have no idea what they are made of. What is the likelihood you would order the thing you know nothing about?
In the same way, when people are asked about an unfamiliar politician, their responses tend to be driven by vague assumptions, party branding, or gut feeling rather than a carefully or even slightly formed impression.
Can We Know Anything at All?
One of the biggest takeaways from our research so far is that the vast majority of Canadians are not tuned into the details of federal politics. Most can’t name key cabinet ministers. Even fewer can identify potential leadership contenders. You might wonder, “If that’s the case, how did Justin Trudeau ever become prime minister in the first place?” That’s actually a great example of how things can change when you become a household name. When Trudeau ran for Liberal leader in 2013, he had two big advantages that none of the current prospective successors can replicate overnight:
1. He was already known across Canada because of his father’s legacy and his own high-profile activities (like his time as an MP and well-covered appearances in the media).
2. He ran a campaign that garnered significant media attention, which allowed voters to form an opinion beyond just recognizing the name. That campaign was also much longer than this one is going to be - almost an entire year.
Compare that with Dominic Leblanc or Melanie Joly—both experienced and high-profile cabinet ministers, but hardly household names. Could they suddenly connect with Canadians and shift Liberal fortunes? Possibly. But you won’t see evidence of it in a poll right now, because no poll can measure what would happen after a candidate becomes the focus of national media, daily commentary, and (inevitably) partisan attacks.
Even if either were to win, would they have enough time before an election for Canadians to really get to know them?
What This Means for the Leadership Race
So, as this leadership race begins, we need to remember that the initial polls testing each candidate’s support are less about genuine political preference and more about who is least unknown. An unknown politician might be able to generate excitement once they enter the spotlight. The question is whether that spotlight will generate positive impressions or negative ones. Voters can flip from “I’ve never heard of this person” to “This person is a breath of fresh air,” or they could end up saying, “I’m not impressed by what I see” or “same as the previous guy.”
In other words, the next Liberal leader—whoever it might be—will start off with a relatively clean slate with the vast majority of Canadians. That’s especially true given the condensed timeframe the election will be under. That can be both an asset and a liability. The asset: People haven’t formed negative associations yet. The liability: They also haven’t formed positive associations either, and they’ll have to break through inevitable Conservative attacks (with millions in the bank to fund an massive ad blitz) and limited media bandwidth to make themselves known.
The Bottom Line
To me, the biggest lesson from our recognizability research in July is that polls measuring candidate support for prospective Liberal leaders are, at this point, little more than name recognition tests. We’ve seen that even someone as prominent in political circles as Mark Carney is recognized by only 7% of Canadians from a photo. Melanie Joly might receive headlines in Ottawa, but 80% can’t pick her out of a lineup. That’s not a comment on their capabilities; it’s simply the reality of low familiarity.
Voters form opinions about people they see and hear regularly, not about names they might read in passing in a news story. The real race for the Liberal leadership will start from scratch for nearly every contender who seeks it.
Until then, keep in mind that we’ll have more data coming later this week, and it may tell us if these recognition numbers have moved at all and how some new possible candidates - like Christy Clark or Steven Guilbeault - compare.
But if I had to guess, it won’t show us that anyone has suddenly morphed into a household name overnight perhaps except for Freeland whose resignation was known by most people. That kind of shift requires time, exposure, and a compelling reason for Canadians to tune in. Without it, any “favourite” for the Liberal crown will remain just that—a favourite among a small group of insiders, untested in the broader court of public opinion.
For Liberals trying to decide who might have the best chance of defeating Poilievre or “saving the furniture” that may not become clear until much much later - if at all, given the shortened period Canadians will have to assess the possible replacements for Justin Trudeau.