Latest news with #PendulumGroup
Winnipeg Free Press
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- Winnipeg Free Press
Liberal Leader Mark Carney ran a disciplined campaign in his trial-by-fire election
SASKATOON – Mark Carney's election campaign came full circle on April 26 when he returned to a weedy empty lot in Windsor, Ont., where, a month earlier, the Liberal leader experienced one of the most important moments of his rookie political year. On March 26, just days after the federal election campaign began and with the cross-border Ambassador Bridge in the background, Carney promised to protect the auto sector and warned that United States President Donald Trump sought to break the economy so that the United States could make Canada its 51st state. Later that day — as if conjured up by Carney's words — Trump injected himself into the fray again by threatening to impose new auto tariffs on Canada, allowing Carney to put on his metaphorical prime minister's hat and respond with authority as the trade crisis escalated. Back in Windsor on Saturday, as the election campaign was winding down, Carney again told a campaign rally that Trump is 'trying to break us so America can own us.' The rally crowd started chanting: 'Never 51!' On the influential Curse of Politics podcast, Liberal insider David Herle said such moments in the campaign's first week — when Carney was laying out the nature of the threat posed by the Trump administration — were his best. He said the Liberals have been 'living off that magic ever since.' Carney, who at age 60 is a first-time politician running to lead a G7 country, projects a deep calm when he speaks about the threats and challenges facing Canada — even when one of those threats is the prospect of being swallowed up by the U.S. Yaroslav Baran, co-founder of the Pendulum Group consulting firm and a former communications adviser to Stephen Harper, said Carney was able to leverage his brief time as prime minister in a way that shaped and boosted his campaign. Baran said Carney's use of the position was a little unfair, given the air of authority it gave him during critical periods in the campaign. 'Those kinds of moments help you if you are the incumbent trying to portray yourself as a statesman,' he said. 'When you actually play the role of a statesman at an important time, that helps you.' Baran also said Carney leaned into his muted tone and subdued manner of speaking, which helped him strike a contrast with other politicians — particularly with his unpopular predecessor Justin Trudeau. 'That was a conscious and smart move on their part,' Baran said. 'He or his advisers realize that he's boring, he is nondescript in the way he speaks, he lifts words off a page like they're anvils … he barely sounds like he's interested in his own message. Rather than trying to rapidly train him out of that into a different speaking style, they decided to lean into that and turn it into an advantage. Maybe we've had too much drama.' Don Guy, a previous campaign manager for former Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, said Carney's campaign has gone 'pretty well' considering his inexperience. 'They were successful in establishing a frame around Trump in tariffs and positioning Mark's candidacy as prime minister as the best response to that in a way that transcended other issues for a lot of voters,' he said. It may feel like a year since Trudeau announced he would step aside as Liberal leader — it's been just over three months. And right around that time, many people wondered whether the Liberals could even finish third. 'Just about any senior Liberal in the country has been nervous throughout — not because of anything Mark's done, but because of just how quickly the turnaround happened,' Guy said. 'It's felt good … but in some ways, it's been the most nerve-racking because of the circumstances and how far behind we were for so long.' Guy said Carney's newness to politics prevented the Conservatives from pushing out tens of millions of dollars in negative pre-campaign advertising to crush his public image. Baran said Carney's hopes depend entirely on convincing a large number of Canadians that he represents a clean break from the unpopular Trudeau government. Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre have spent much of the race talking about different things. While Poilievre has zeroed in since the beginning on the cost of living and has argued the Liberals don't deserve a fourth term, polls show many voters anxious about the threat posed by the Trump administration have been abandoning the NDP and Bloc Québécois for the Liberal party. Polling aggregator 338Canada shows Carney started off in a strong position, with a two-point lead that eventually grew to a five-point gap over the campaign. Carney hit a ceiling of 44 per cent support in the middle of the race. Poilievre closed the gap to three points just ahead of voting day, with the Liberals at 42 per cent and the Conservatives at 39 per cent. That tightening in the polls coincided with Trump apparently choosing to make fewer public statements about Canada — statements that, to date, have helped the Liberals' efforts to define the ballot question. Carney faced a trial-by-fire in this campaign and had to pick up some basic skills on the fly — how to turn on the charm with complete strangers, for example, or how to look at cameras without coming across as awkward. His rusty French was widely seen as one of his biggest liabilities going into the campaign, but he did not stumble in the televised French-language debate and a Leger poll earlier this month suggested that a third of Canadians who tuned in said he beat their expectations. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Carney had his share of gaffes during the campaign — neglecting to report that Trump tried to sell him on statehood for Canada during their first phone call, for example, or failing to immediately eject a problem candidate who joked about turning a rival over to a foreign power for a bounty. But the missteps didn't seem to dent his image enough to seriously damage his prospects. Some observers say they're surprised at how a career banker made the switch to electoral politics with apparent ease. 'The thing that's really impressed me … and really has become evident during the leadership campaign and even more so during the election campaign, is he does genuinely like people and is interested in them,' Guy said. 'That makes becoming a quick study for some of the nuances of campaigning that much easier and that much more accessible.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 27, 2025.
CBC
26-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Leaders and rivals: These Ottawa ridings are ones to watch
Social Sharing Political watchers in the capital will have their eyes fixed on ridings with high-profile candidates, old rivals and at least the possibility of a dramatic turn. Two main party leaders are vying for side-by-side Ottawa seats this election, a manifestation of the mix of federal and local politics to which people who live in the region are well accustomed. Yaroslav Baran, co-founder of Pendulum Group and a former Conservative Party communications lead, calls the local ridings both "interesting and boring." "Unlike many other parts of the country, we've got a high concentration of notable incumbents running," he said. "It's also not a very volatile electoral theatre. In most cases, if not all, we should probably be expecting incumbents to be winning." While few expect major upsets, strategists are interested to see how votes shake out in Carleton, Ottawa Centre, and Kanata. Rural battleground As candidates and volunteers round enter the final days of campaigning, Baran suggests anyone interested in predicting party fortunes look at how resources are deployed. For instance, he expects Conservatives to pull people from ridings where the party won't win "in a million years" — like Liberal stronghold Ottawa-Vanier-Gloucester — and shift them to ridings where they might be able to move the needle. "You want to shore up what you've got," he said of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's Carleton riding. Polling there continues to show a Conservative lead, but also suggests the race may be tightening. Canada Votes 2025: Carleton Kathryn LeBlanc, who is principal consultant at LeBlanc and Co Communications and has experience in several roles working for the NDP on Parliament Hill, is likewise glued to the rural riding. Leaders benefit from a huge boost in name recognition, she said. But they are also susceptible to broad national trends, meaning the Conservative downward slide from pre-election polling would have an effect. "I think that his message has gotten across, but it just may not be a message that's resonating," she said, noting that the high proportion of political staff and members of the public service blurs the line in many ridings. "[Ottawa is] a collision of the national contexts and local contexts." Poilievre's team has tried to pour cold water over reports of trouble in the riding. But Greg MacEachern, who has experience working on Liberal campaigns, said insiders "aren't really surprised." The founder of KAN Strategies said Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy proved to be "the Energizer bunny of campaigning," applying pressure to any crack in the Conservative stronghold through an exceptional ground game. When Carleton voters head to the polls on Monday they'll receive the longest ballot ever. The riding also saw the highest turnout in last weekend's advance polling, with Liberal Leader Mark Carney's Nepean riding rounding out the top five. WATCH: Carleton voters weigh in on 2025 election Carleton voters weigh in on 2025 election 1 month ago Duration 0:48 Downtown rematch Before a new Liberal leader and U.S. threats shook up Canadian politics, one downtown Ottawa riding was drawing considerable attention. "The hope was that with declining Liberal fortunes that the party would be able to scoop [Ottawa Centre] back to the NDP federally, which it had held up until 2015 with Paul Dewer," said Jordan Leichnitz, a former senior staffer for the federal New Democrats. The NDP's Joel Harden left his provincial seat for a rematch against Yasir Naqvi, the Liberal candidate who spent part of his last term on a failed provincial leadership bid. Harden's supporters hold up his 2018 Ontario Election win over Naqvi as proof the riding remains winnable even as national support for the party tumbles. "If I was the Harden campaign, that's probably the best thing they have going for them," said MacEachern. "But Yasir Naqvi running under [former Ontario premier] Kathleen Wynn versus Yasir Navi running under Mark Carney are two very different things." While Harden is in an unfamiliar federal arena, Leichnitz said he's brought a motivated base of volunteers. "The Conservatives have no chance in this riding," she said. "[The NDP] will be out making the case that it is safe for people in Ottawa Centre to vote their conscience and they can vote to elect Joel and have a strong NDP voice within a Liberal majority or minority Parliament." Suburban challenger Of all the Liberal incumbents, Baran suggests Kanata is not "in the bag" and Liberals will do "everything they can to hang on to it." Former Liberal cabinet minister Jenna Sudds is facing off against Conservative challenger Greg Kung, a paramedic who holds up his work as an adviser to two Conservative finance ministers: Jim Flaherty and Joe Oliver. "That riding arguably might have been considered safe territory for the Liberals if it were not for the hard work and grit and early start of the Conservative candidate," Baran said. "If we see any riding switch hands from the Liberals to the Conservatives in this election, it will be that one." Kung was one of several Conservatives who got a considerable head start on campaigning, hoping to take advantage of Trudeau's cratering popularity. But MacEachern doesn't believe that will help them now. "Twenty twenty-four was then and this is now," he said. "There's a feeling that the Conservative leader is running as if it's September of 2024 and not April of 2025. So I think any gains that the opposition candidates would have had in those ridings were completely wiped out." Voting day is April 28.
