Polling showed the Conservatives up 20 to 30 points earlier this year, but polls published in early March and late February showed the race narrowing to a toss-up.

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Beth Burke, CEO of the Canadian American Business Council, told the Washington Examiner that sentiment among Canadian voters has “definitely shifted” in favor of the Liberals since the trade war kicked off on Trump’s watch.

“We have seen this through lots of different iterations in the U.S., but people become patriotic when they feel attacked, and they coalesce around the people who they think are championing their defense,” she told the Washington Examiner. “And right now, the Liberal government is doing that. I don’t presume to say that the Conservatives wouldn’t be doing the same thing, but I would just say, if you look at the numbers, the polls are not trending in that direction. In fact, I think it’s having the opposite effect.”

A poll published by Ipsos last week gave Liberals their first election lead since 2021, showing 38% support compared to 36% for Conservatives — a 4-point swing from the Ipsos last poll two weeks prior.

Nik Nanos, Ipsos’s chief data scientist, said the election had moved from a referendum on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to a referendum on Trump and perceived hostility for Canada and, in the process, sent Conservatives’ hopes for a “super-majority” in government “completely out the window.”

“When the Conservatives had a 27-point advantage in our polling, it didn’t have anything to do with Pierre Poilievre being strong or liked, or the Conservatives being brilliant strategists,” he explained. “It all had to do with dislike of Justin Trudeau and people wanting change and the Conservatives being the agent of change.”

Trudeau announced his resignation from office in January, with his party slated to announce its new leader this Sunday, but isn’t going quietly into the night. He’s frequently sparred with Trump over the 25% tariffs, which he argues are in violation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade, brokered in 2019 by Trump himself.

Though Trump opted Thursday to extend one-month tariff exemptions for all Canadian and Mexican imports complying with USMCA, a move previewed earlier this week by the Trump administration after tariff implementation led to significant stock market losses, Trudeau’s office maintains Canada will keep its retaliatory measures against the United States in place unless Trump drops the trade war altogether.

“We’re not interested in meeting in the middle and having some reduced tariff. Canada wants the tariffs removed,” Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc confirmed in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Liberals’ two top candidates to replace Trudeau have quickly taken similar stances, positioning themselves as capable of standing up to Trump.

Mark Carney, who previously served as governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and governor of the Bank of England during Brexit, is the odds-on favorite to win that race.

“Canada faces one of the most serious crises in our history,” he declared during a debate in February. “I know how to manage crisis and I know how to build strong economies.”

Chrystia Freeland, another top contender, served as a top official in Trudeau’s government before resigning over budgetary differences in December. She served as Canada’s foreign minister throughout the USMCA negotiations and has claimed that Trump is a “predator.”

“Let me be very clear with President Trump,” she stated during the debate with Carney. “If I am prime minister, I will not flinch. We will retaliate. If you hit us, we will hit back, but our retaliation will be a lot smarter than their dumb tariffs.”

Poilievre, meanwhile, is seen as something of a diet Trump.

He rode into power on a wave of anti-coronavirus sentiment with a mantra evoking the president — “Canada is broken” — earning vocal public support from Elon Musk and Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz in the process.

Last month, Trudeau announced reciprocal tariffs on more than $30 billion in goods imported from the U.S., but the retaliation has also spilled into everyday life.

Canadians themselves are organizing boycotts of American products, especially bourbon and other spirits. The trade war has even broached Canada’s national pastime: hockey.

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Canadian fans have taken to booing the American national anthem before NHL games. And, during the first matchup between Team USA and Team Canada during the Four Nations Face-Off preliminaries last month, three fights took place during the first period of play alone. Team USA won that game, but Team Canada secured a 3-2 victory in the finals held in Boston the following week.

And despite Trump’s possible walking back of the tariffs, it seems like the relationship will stay icy for the foreseeable future. Trudeau told reporters this week, “We’re probably going to keep booing the American anthem.”