David Coletto: The one thing standing in the way of Pierre Poilievre becoming prime minister is Pierre Poilievre

Later this week, Conservatives will gather in Calgary for their national convention, where Pierre Poilievre faces a mandatory leadership review on January 30. He is widely expected to win easily.

The more interesting challenge the Conservatives face, however, is how to grow beyond the coalition they have today.

Over the past week, this paper has reported on a national survey of just over 2,000 Canadian adults conducted by Abacus Data that explored public opinion about the Conservative party. The results help explain why Poilievre looks so secure inside his party, and why that security doesn’t automatically translate into broader appeal.

Let’s start with the obvious strength. Poilievre is not in trouble with his base. If anything, he has it locked down. Among Conservative base voters, 79 per cent rate his performance as party leader as excellent or good. Seventy-eight per cent think the party is headed in the right direction under his leadership and 76 per cent would vote to keep him as leader. His net favourability among Conservative supporters is a striking +64.

This doesn’t look like a coalition merely tolerating its leader. It looks like a coalition that actually likes him. Conservative base voters and the broader Conservative voter group are aligned across most measures, from Poilievre’s tone and style to the party’s direction and its priorities. The roughly 40 per cent support Conservatives earned in last year’s federal election looks less like a high-water mark and more like a stable foundation.

But there’s a catch.

The same traits that work so well with the base appear to be limiting his reach beyond it. Among “accessible Conservatives,” the 14 per cent of Canadians who do not currently support the party but remain open to considering it, only 30 per cent have a positive impression of Poilievre. His net favourability with this group is -4. Just 29 per cent rate his performance positively. And if they were voting in a leadership review, 43 per cent would replace him.

These are not voters who are fundamentally hostile to the Conservative brand. What they’re unsure about is Poilievre himself. When asked what would increase their confidence, they point to the same themes: more attention to everyday “kitchen table” issues, a less combative tone, more willingness to work with others, and more detail about what he would actually do in government.

In other words, they are looking for something quite different from what many Conservative base voters seem to want more of.

Outside the Conservative orbit, things harden further. Among non-Conservative supporters, only 9 per cent have a positive impression of Poilievre, while 71 per cent see him negatively. Sixty-two per cent think the party is headed in the wrong direction under his leadership. And 52 per cent say he is a lot like Donald Trump.

All of this creates a ceiling problem.

A party can sometimes win without being broadly popular if the election becomes a referendum on the incumbent. But Mark Carney’s personal favourability currently outpaces Poilievre’s. Voters are not simply choosing between change and continuity. They’re also weighing competing leadership styles and competing visions of what the country needs next. Poilievre looks well-positioned to hold his base, but not to make meaningful gains beyond it.

You can see the tension in what different groups want the Conservative party to do.

Conservative voters generally want the party to stay the course, or even push harder. Seventy-one per cent support using language like “Canada is broken.” Fifty-four per cent want the party to be tougher and more confrontational with the media and institutions. Fifty-nine per cent think Conservatives should stand firm on conservative principles even if it makes winning harder.

Accessible Conservatives lean in the other direction on almost all of these.

This is the dilemma heading into Calgary. The party can’t fully satisfy both audiences at once. A strategy built to maximize base enthusiasm risks narrowing the pool of persuadable voters, which has already tightened from 53 per cent in mid-2025 to 48 per cent today. But a strategy designed to broaden appeal risks frustrating a base that currently looks rock solid.

Some of what happens next will depend on the shape of the wider race. If the NDP gains traction under new leadership and pulls meaningful support away from the Liberals, the Conservative floor of 40 per cent could be enough to win. But if the next election becomes a straight Liberal vs. Conservative decision, the limits of the current strategy become harder to avoid.

This convention will offer some signals about where Poilievre wants to take the party. Does he widen the tent, or does he lean even more into the version of Conservatism that has kept his base unified and motivated?

For Conservatives, the problem isn’t holding what they have. It’s deciding whether they have to add more to win.