Why Pierre Should Be Worried.

Since Christmas and the holidays, the Liberals have consistently led in the polls, although not by a lot. Between one and three percent. People will look at the top-line numbers and think that the horse race between the LPC and CPC is the story. If you draw your conclusions from that, you're missing the most significant piece of the puzzle, namely, the champagne social democrats. Smack in the middle of a leadership campaign, the NDP is coming back to life and has returned to double digits. Again, this can be misleading: conventional wisdom would have you believe that the New Democrats are taking votes away from the Liberals, but that would be incorrect. Ironically, it's the Conservatives who're bleeding some of their populist wing to the NDP. Put another way, Pierre's gargantuan effort to turn three generations of young people into CPC supporters bore more fruit than expected. However, now some of that cohort are returning to the New Democrats. 

And the billion-dollar question is why? Ironically, this is one issue that can't be blamed on the leader. He quite literally almost singlehandedly created the populist faction in our party. I'll be watching the numbers, especially Abacus and Angus Reid, to get an idea of what CPC supporters and the base are thinking.  Pierre knows that as soon as Justin was taken out of the mix, at least a plurality of voters chose to ditch him at the altar. The question now becomes, will the same thing happen again with some populist conservatives once the NDP gets a new leader? Maybe, maybe not. But it should be keeping Poilièvre up at night. Pierre is not known for being a master with a backup plan. My advice is to think even more out of the box now, before he's likely to be humiliated again in this country's stark and unforgiving political arena. He needs to remember that the only place where you can get more than two solid chances is at the Sacrament of Penance.