The Vibe Shift
Something's in the air. An election? A changing of the seasons? Or a little bit of everything all of the time?
It was a cold winter’s day in the fourth year since the last election when Trudeau announced his resignation as Prime Minister.
The polls began to narrow not too long after. A twenty-point lead for the Official Opposition rapidly closed to the single digits, and in the days leading up to a new leader being elected, the polls flirted with a statistical tie.
The Liberals took the lead after that new leader took office - someone who wasn’t a Parliamentarian at the time of their election - and Parliament would likely be dissolved in the days to come.
Sound familiar?
The year was 1984.
Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives won the most seats in Canadian history after the Liberals led in opinion polls leading up to dissolution.
While 2025 has some eerily similar polling patterns to 1984, the vibes feel different. I briefly wrote about vibe shifts in some of my other pieces. Now it’s time to dig a little bit deeper.
This might not be 1984 after all.
We know how quickly things can turn on a dime.
We saw it in the United States just last year, with President Biden’s withdrawal, Vice President Harris’ entry, and Governor Walz’s nomination.
We’re currently seeing it in Norway, where former Prime Minister and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg returned to domestic politics.
And, of course, we’re seeing right here, right now.
While the end result was not victory, there are some lessons the Liberals can take from the Harris-Walz campaign to foster success going forward. Let’s take Tim Walz’s social media game. Some of his most-engaged content on TikTok were ones with his family - filmed from their POV, giving viewers a chance to see him not just as a Governor or a Vice Presidential nominee, but as a dad.
At a time when Carney’s re-introducing himself to a new generation of voters - say, those that might not have been politically aware during the 2008 recession - letting them see this side of the Prime Minister could very well pay dividends long after the campaign is over.
And, yes, that means leaning into the cheesiness from time to time.
There’s something wholesome about seeing this side of a politician. It allows them to introduce their family to voters in a way that’s genuine, digestible, and authentic. It makes content seem more organic. It also gives voters a chance to see their Prime Minister be the guy they want to grab a beer or coffee with.
It was something that the UK’s Liberal Democrats did exceptionally well last spring en route to their best result in over a century. Their leader, Ed Davey, became known for, well, just having fun on the campaign trail. They ran on an overarching message of positive politics (sound familiar?), and British voters got to see a leader (and a party) running a much different kind of campaign than, say, Reform UK.
There’s a lesson here too. Don’t be afraid to be silly. It doesn’t mean Carney has to ride a jet-ski in the Okanagan or try to catch a football in North Bay.
But it does mean that there’s merit in sometimes having a bit of fun on the campaign trail. Just having that likeability factor as a person - not just as a Prime Minister - can go a long way in keeping that vibe shift going in a direction more favourable to the Liberals.
Speaking of having a bit of fun:
Why yes, that is the (then) future Prime Minister of Canada sporting a Connor McJesus shirt during the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
There’s something genuine about this tweet reacting to Connor McDavid’s golden goal at last month’s Four Nations Face-Off. It doesn’t sound like a generic “Congrats to Team Canada on the big win!” message. It’s a side of the Prime Minister that people are starting to see a little bit more every day; whether through his campaign’s soft-launch on The Tonight Show to how he weaved a number of hockey references into his victory speech.
I bring this up because there’s an opportunity for the Liberals to seize the moment even further. One common criticism of the Harris-Walz campaign was that they didn’t appear on podcasts popular with male listeners like The Joe Rogan Experience.
This isn’t to say that the Prime Minister should appear on Spittin’ Chiclets (the most-listened-to hockey podcast in Canada) but there is an opportunity for Carney to flex his knowledge, his passion, and his personal experiences to an audience that might’ve thought about voting Conservative, but may also be part of that segment of male voters who might be coming back to the Liberals (more on that in just a few paragraphs).
One potential option? The second-most listened-to hockey podcast in Canada: Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts. Consider it another way to introduce and re-introduce Mark Carney to Canadians as not only the Prime Minister, but as a hockey fan too.
There’s something about leaning into a Prime Minister’s nerdy side that might pay dividends to a new generation of voters. As much as we saw bits and pieces of Justin Trudeau’s nerdiness during his tenure as Prime Minister, I’ve often thought to myself that we could’ve seen even more of it.
I feel there was a missed opportunity during the pandemic to have Trudeau join Twitch and stream there from time to time; it worked quite well for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after all.
But that’s another article for another time.
Back to the topic at hand…
Since Mark Carney’s name has been tested in polls - and now with him as leader - the gender divide that existed seems to be narrowing fast. Let’s compare data on male-identified voters from a set of polls from Leger and Abacus from shortly after the Deputy Prime Minister’s resignation in mid-December to just a few days ago:
Leger - December 20-22, 2024 to March 7-10, 2025:
48% to 43% - Conservative (-5)
16% to 38% - Liberal (+22)
16% to 6% - NDP (-10)
Abacus - December 16-17, 2024 to March 10-12, 2025:
48% to 41% - Conservative (-7)
18% to 33% - Liberal (+15)
15% to 14% - NDP (-1)
From the same four polls on women-identified voters:
Leger - December 20-22, 2024 to March 7-10, 2025:
24% to 35% - Liberal (+11)
39% to 31% - Conservative (-8)
22% to 17% - NDP (-5)
Abacus - December 16-17, 2024 to March 7-10, 2025:
41% to 35% - Conservative (-6)
21% to 34% - Liberal (+13)
21% to 17% - NDP (-4)
From 4-1 with 14 minutes ago in the third period to a tie game with 50.2 seconds to go; an absolutely stunning collapse - or perhaps a reversal of fortunes, depending on your point of view.
The vibe shift is real.
But is it sustainable?
A lot can change over the course of a writ period, after all.
So far, Prime Minister Carney’s government seem to be taking more and more wind out of Pierre Poilievre’s sails by the day. Carney axed the tax on his first day in office, all but eliminating one of the Conservative’s key campaign planks.
While the Conservatives tried to spin it as covering up a hidden carbon tax that could come back later, the visual of Prime Minister Carney signing a decision note initiating the process on reducing the consumer rate to $0 is something that Pierre Poilievre can no longer do.
The framing of halving the size of Cabinet as one that’s leaner and more efficient has both risks and rewards:
On the risky side, the fact that there’s no Minister solely responsible for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) might follow Carney and the Liberals throughout the campaign - especially at a time where we see causes championed by WAGE being eroded south of the border. It has the potential to shift vibes, especially if it’s something that Liberal candidates hear at the doors throughout the campaign.
The merger of Veterans Affairs with National Revenue may be a temporary one to have two service delivery-oriented departments operated under one umbrella, but it may not be sustainable after the election, given the size and nature of both departments.
However, there are a few hidden rewards for the Liberals: By reducing the size of Cabinet to 23 (while getting very close to gender-balance), it puts Pierre Poilievre in an interesting position should he be invited to form government after the election. If Poilievre increases the size of Cabinet, he risks running afoul of wanting to run a smaller, more efficient government. If he wants to appoint even fewer Ministers, he risks having the criticism of Conservative Cuts return to the forefront.
When a vibe shift is occurring, keeping thing going in your direction - not letting the momentum slip back to the Conservatives, for one - is critical. There are probably fewer days between now and our Election Day than there were between the 2024 Democratic Convention and Presidential Election.
That means that there’s an opportunity for Carney’s core team to learn from what might’ve gone wrong with the Harris-Walz campaign. It also gives Carney’s team some insights on just how sustainable positive momentum and good vibes can be for a campaign in the mid-2020s.
I also have to wonder if the Prime Minister will join TikTok in the days to come. Politicians and political parties from around the world - Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Anthony Albanese, the UK Liberal Democrats, and the UK Labour Party, to name a few - have used the app to much success, getting their messages out to people in a way that’s digestible and engaging.
There’s merit in having a direct presence on TikTok, because it gets official Liberal messaging and content from the Prime Minister directly into people’s algorithms. It’s an important tool to have when running a campaign in 2025.
It might not be the single key to winning an election, but it might be another way to keep up the vibe shift.
There’s a lot more I can say about this topic, but we’ll save that for another time.