And uncovers what we knew. "He lost because he's a dick". (Anonymous Con.)
Inside the 2025 election: How Mark Carney resurrected the Liberal Party with Pierre Poilievre’s help
The Star’s Althia Raj explores how mistakes and missed opportunities saw a near-certain victory slip from the Conservatives’ grasp.
Updated 13 hrs ago
May 29, 2025
17 min read
Save
Mark Carney won the 2025 election, but it was not the red sweep his party had expected.
Ramon Ferreira Toronto Star illustration using photos from The Canadian Press
By Althia RajNational Columnist
It was not the election result Mark Carney’s team expected. On the morning of April 28, Braeden Caley, the Liberal national campaign’s co-director, told the Star he expected to win between 185 and 187 seats. Andrew Bevan, another campaign co-director, pegged the number at 181. Others guessed between 184 and 190. Carney’s close adviser, Gerald Butts predicted 183.
He was lowballing expectations. The Liberals’ modelling had been off in the last two elections, projecting 16 fewer seats in 2021 than the party ended up winning. This time, internal interactive voice response polls suggested Liberal support was higher than their own modelling suggested.
But when the results were finally counted, it wasn’t the red sweep the team expected.
The Liberals had won 169 seats, a few shy of the 172 needed for a majority.
This was also not the results the Conservatives, who held a 27-point lead in public support over the Liberals as recently as January, wanted. For more than a year, the Conservatives had led across all age groups, genders, education levels, and in all regions of the country except in Quebec, where they had been second to the Bloc Québécois. Eighty-eight per cent of Canadians were telling pollsters they wanted change.
Pierre Poilievre lost his seat in the House of Commons in the federal election a month ago.
Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Six months ago, after U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected, the NDP and the Liberals were tied, according to polling from Abacus Data released the week of Nov. 20. Most Canadians expected the Conservatives to win the next election. And the vast majority of Conservative/Liberal switchers — 83 per cent — felt Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had the best chance of achieving positive outcomes for Canada vis-à-vis Trump.
“So far, there is no evidence that Trump’s victory should make Liberals feel better about their fortunes,” Abacus Data CEO David Coletto told the Star at the time.
This story, based on interviews with 106 political insiders, candidates and staff members, is an account of how all of that changed, how through mistakes and missed opportunities one side watched a near-certain victory slip from its grasp, while the other experienced a rebirth that propelled it from its political deathbed to a near majority government.
Star Exclusive: Part 2
Analysis
When Donald Trump upended the election race, Mark Carney was already ‘Mr. Business’ — but Pierre Poilievre couldn’t pivot fast enough
Star Exclusive: Part 3
Analysis
Why Pierre Poilievre lost his seat — and why Mark Carney stumbled short of a majority government
‘He blames Trump’
Ask any member of Mark Carney’s team and they will tell you that the Liberals won the 2025 election because of Carney: He was the right man, with the right skill set, at the right moment. And he did the work.
“We could have run the same campaign for another leader and it would have been a disaster,” Butts told the Star. “The thing that made this campaign successful was Mark. Like, that’s true. That is capital-T true.”
But would Carney have won without Trump back in the White House? Is there a candidate Carney without Trump?
Carney suggested several times on the campaign trail that he joined the contest to lead the Liberals in January because of the existential threat Canada faced. “I put my hand up because of the crisis,” he said in Windsor, Ont. on March 26.
“I knew that we needed big change, big change here in Canada,” he said at a rally in St. John’s on March 23. “Big change to fix our economy. Big change to fight Donald Trump’s tariffs.”
Carney’s ambition actually dates back decades, but he leaned into this moment — one that seemed not only designed for the Oxford-educated central banker, but that seemed also to disqualify his primary political opponent.
Poilievre believes he was defeated in this spring’s election because of Carney and Trump. “He blames Trump and Mark Carney being a shiny new bauble as the reasons why he lost,” said an insider, who spoke with the Conservative leader and was granted anonymity to speak candidly, like most who spoke to the Star for this story.
Trump made Poilievre’s path to the Prime Minister’s Office more difficult, in part, because Poilievre had tried to emulate some of Trump’s political strategy. His aggressive and irreverent language, the demonizing of political opponents, the dismissive nicknames, the spreading of misinformation, the culture wars, conspiracy theories, attacks against the mainstream media — even Poilievre’s rallies recalled Trump’s events.
In December, Donald Trump posted this photoshopped image on his Truth Social platform. The U.S. president has repeatedly mused about making Canada the 51st state.
Donald Trump via Truth Social
So when Trump started threatening tariffs against Canada and musing about making it his country’s 51st state, it quickly became what Butts called the “central problem” for Poilievre. “When there’s a wolf at the door,” he noted, “you don’t want somebody running the house that really, really likes wolves.”
Were it not for Trump’s return to the White House, the result — and timing — of the 2025 federal election may have been quite different. Instead, Trump united Canadians with a renewed sense of pride, and Poilievre’s “Canada is broken” rhetoric was no longer what many of them wanted to hear.
“The stuff Pierre was saying for two years was fine,” said one of Poilievre’s Ontario MPs. “When Trudeau left, it became less fine. And when it could be compared to Trump, it became a real problem.”
In a series of ads, the Liberal Party of Canada was happy to remind Canadians of their similarities.
But Trump aside, there were other reasons why Poilievre lost what many on his team believe was an entirely winnable election.
One reason frequently cited by those around him was Poilievre himself.
“He lost because he’s a dick,” one of his advisers told the Star, a sentiment cited by other staffers and insiders.
Inside the 2025 election: How Mark Carney resurrected the Liberal Party with Pierre Poilievre’s help
The Star’s Althia Raj explores how mistakes and missed opportunities saw a near-certain victory slip from the Conservatives’ grasp.
Updated 13 hrs ago
May 29, 2025
17 min read
Save
Mark Carney won the 2025 election, but it was not the red sweep his party had expected.
Ramon Ferreira Toronto Star illustration using photos from The Canadian Press
By Althia RajNational Columnist
It was not the election result Mark Carney’s team expected. On the morning of April 28, Braeden Caley, the Liberal national campaign’s co-director, told the Star he expected to win between 185 and 187 seats. Andrew Bevan, another campaign co-director, pegged the number at 181. Others guessed between 184 and 190. Carney’s close adviser, Gerald Butts predicted 183.
He was lowballing expectations. The Liberals’ modelling had been off in the last two elections, projecting 16 fewer seats in 2021 than the party ended up winning. This time, internal interactive voice response polls suggested Liberal support was higher than their own modelling suggested.
But when the results were finally counted, it wasn’t the red sweep the team expected.
The Liberals had won 169 seats, a few shy of the 172 needed for a majority.
This was also not the results the Conservatives, who held a 27-point lead in public support over the Liberals as recently as January, wanted. For more than a year, the Conservatives had led across all age groups, genders, education levels, and in all regions of the country except in Quebec, where they had been second to the Bloc Québécois. Eighty-eight per cent of Canadians were telling pollsters they wanted change.
Pierre Poilievre lost his seat in the House of Commons in the federal election a month ago.
Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Six months ago, after U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected, the NDP and the Liberals were tied, according to polling from Abacus Data released the week of Nov. 20. Most Canadians expected the Conservatives to win the next election. And the vast majority of Conservative/Liberal switchers — 83 per cent — felt Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had the best chance of achieving positive outcomes for Canada vis-à-vis Trump.
“So far, there is no evidence that Trump’s victory should make Liberals feel better about their fortunes,” Abacus Data CEO David Coletto told the Star at the time.
This story, based on interviews with 106 political insiders, candidates and staff members, is an account of how all of that changed, how through mistakes and missed opportunities one side watched a near-certain victory slip from its grasp, while the other experienced a rebirth that propelled it from its political deathbed to a near majority government.
Star Exclusive: Part 2
Analysis
When Donald Trump upended the election race, Mark Carney was already ‘Mr. Business’ — but Pierre Poilievre couldn’t pivot fast enough
Star Exclusive: Part 3
Analysis
Why Pierre Poilievre lost his seat — and why Mark Carney stumbled short of a majority government
‘He blames Trump’
Ask any member of Mark Carney’s team and they will tell you that the Liberals won the 2025 election because of Carney: He was the right man, with the right skill set, at the right moment. And he did the work.
“We could have run the same campaign for another leader and it would have been a disaster,” Butts told the Star. “The thing that made this campaign successful was Mark. Like, that’s true. That is capital-T true.”
But would Carney have won without Trump back in the White House? Is there a candidate Carney without Trump?
Carney suggested several times on the campaign trail that he joined the contest to lead the Liberals in January because of the existential threat Canada faced. “I put my hand up because of the crisis,” he said in Windsor, Ont. on March 26.
“I knew that we needed big change, big change here in Canada,” he said at a rally in St. John’s on March 23. “Big change to fix our economy. Big change to fight Donald Trump’s tariffs.”
Carney’s ambition actually dates back decades, but he leaned into this moment — one that seemed not only designed for the Oxford-educated central banker, but that seemed also to disqualify his primary political opponent.
Poilievre believes he was defeated in this spring’s election because of Carney and Trump. “He blames Trump and Mark Carney being a shiny new bauble as the reasons why he lost,” said an insider, who spoke with the Conservative leader and was granted anonymity to speak candidly, like most who spoke to the Star for this story.
Trump made Poilievre’s path to the Prime Minister’s Office more difficult, in part, because Poilievre had tried to emulate some of Trump’s political strategy. His aggressive and irreverent language, the demonizing of political opponents, the dismissive nicknames, the spreading of misinformation, the culture wars, conspiracy theories, attacks against the mainstream media — even Poilievre’s rallies recalled Trump’s events.
In December, Donald Trump posted this photoshopped image on his Truth Social platform. The U.S. president has repeatedly mused about making Canada the 51st state.
Donald Trump via Truth Social
So when Trump started threatening tariffs against Canada and musing about making it his country’s 51st state, it quickly became what Butts called the “central problem” for Poilievre. “When there’s a wolf at the door,” he noted, “you don’t want somebody running the house that really, really likes wolves.”
Were it not for Trump’s return to the White House, the result — and timing — of the 2025 federal election may have been quite different. Instead, Trump united Canadians with a renewed sense of pride, and Poilievre’s “Canada is broken” rhetoric was no longer what many of them wanted to hear.
“The stuff Pierre was saying for two years was fine,” said one of Poilievre’s Ontario MPs. “When Trudeau left, it became less fine. And when it could be compared to Trump, it became a real problem.”
In a series of ads, the Liberal Party of Canada was happy to remind Canadians of their similarities.
But Trump aside, there were other reasons why Poilievre lost what many on his team believe was an entirely winnable election.
One reason frequently cited by those around him was Poilievre himself.
“He lost because he’s a dick,” one of his advisers told the Star, a sentiment cited by other staffers and insiders.
