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Election lesson. Canada's Liberal Party won by uniting the left: liberals win when they fight as one [1]

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Date: 2025-04-29

The political punditariat reports this Tuesday that PM Mark Carney and the Liberal party's come-from-behind victory in Monday's election was due to Trump being a neo-imperialist asshole. And they are right. However, their analysis is incomplete. It is true that, before Trump launched his 51st state rant, polls showed that the Conservative Party , headed by Trump fanboy Pierre Poilievre , was poised for victory but that three months of bombast from south of the border had shifted the electorate's mood. Indeed, the Liberals won. And Poilievre lost his seat.

The image below shows how the polls moved in the Liberal Party's favor from the day before Trump's inauguration to the day before the election.

But there is more to the story. The election showed that North-of-the-border lefties, no matter whether centrist or more extreme, gravitated to the Liberal (mainstream left) Party. And it was in part due to this unity that the Liberals will stay in power — whether with an absolute majority or a plurality of Parliament seats remains TBD. (Update: The Liberals will not reach a majority)

If the reader looks at the polls featured above, they will notice that, while support for the Conservative Party went down, it was not enough to explain the Liberal Party's rise. The Liberals didn't pick up disaffected righties so much as they took support from the further-left New Democratic Party ( NDP ) [the yellow line.] It is reasonable to surmise that, faced with an existential threat, Canada's left dropped dreams of purity and united behind Mark Carney and his Liberal Party.

This trend was also reflected in the share of the vote each Party received in 2025 compared to its vote share in the 2021 election . The Conservative Party actually picked up support, increasing its vote share from 33.74% to 41.3%. Some came from the far-right People's Party's ( PPC ) collapse in support — which went from almost 5% to less than 1%. The Liberals did better — moving from 32.62% to 43.7%. This increase was mainly at the expense of the NPD, whose support declined from 17.82% to 6.3%.

So, what's the lesson the American Left should learn? The answer is simple. Don't fight policy civil wars in times of crisis. Win the election first.

American liberals are a fractious lot. It's nothing new. A century ago, or thereabouts, Will Rogers wryly confessed, "I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat." Jokes about America's official left often contain references to herding cats. Comments on my diaries have accused the Party of being too 'centrist' corporate on the one hand and too beholden to 'lefty' fringe issues on the other. The tenor of those remarks often indicates that the author values purity over victory. And that unless the Party embraces 100% of the opinionator's opinions, that miffed absolutist will take their ball and go home.

To them, I say, "Get over yourself." In American politics today, there is a simple choice: MAGA or a functioning democracy. I want a world where good people of different views can respectfully disagree. But before we get there, we need to fight to protect people's fundamental rights to free speech and voting.

I will vote for any candidate with a D after their name. I know what my ideal political Party looks like. I would love to live in a utopia where my fancy becomes reality, But until that unlikely event occurs, I will not vote to show my moral rectitude. I will vote for the candidate in the best position to protect civil, reproductive, and worker rights.

A candidate who fights for a tax system that doesn't enrich the wealth while children go hungry and the old get cold. For schools with fact-based curriculums. A candidate who will police the border but also protect the rights of political and economic refugees. A candidate who will shield employees and consumers from the avarice of employers and profiteers. A candidate who elevates America from the sewer of individual ambition to a shining example of doing well by doing good.

I'll grant you that's a bit of a fantasy. However, at the very least, I will vote for the candidate who comes closest to my ideals but who can also win.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/29/2319522/-Election-lesson-Canada-s-Liberal-Party-won-by-uniting-the-left-liberals-win-when-they-fight-as-one?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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