Canada sticks it to Trump in wild election twist

Conservatives were polling 20+ points ahead until Trump started blustering about Canada becoming the 51st state and completely blew it for them.

Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney (REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier)

Y’all know I love some some global political drama—especially if it’s funny, and double especially if an autocrat ends up being the butt of the joke. So I am thrilled today to get to wade into the hilarity of Canada’s election results, which cannot be interpreted as anything but a humiliating act of self-sabotage by Donald Trump.

Until a couple months ago, Canada’s conservatives had been on track for a blow-out win due to liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deep unpopularity. The right-wing Tories were dominating in the polls by 23 points in January just after Trudeau resigned. You can see their heavy lead on the blue line in the graph below (liberals are marked in red):

Then Trump was inaugurated, and he inexplicably started attacking Canada. He claimed repeatedly that Canada would be “better off” as our 51st state, and he slapped 25% tariffs on them in March to try and soften their economy and start a trade war ahead of a potential annexation. This obviously pissed off and unified Canadians, who had previously enjoyed a close symbiotic relationship with us, and vastly changed the stakes of their upcoming election.

Trudeau smartly seized on the tariff moment to give a big, passionate speech slamming Trump’s aggression, which breathed life into his own reputation and into the liberal party ahead of the vote to replace him. Liberal candidate Mark Carney, a political newcomer and long shot for Prime Minister, was then able to make a whole campaign out of standing up to the American bully. “Who’s ready to stand up for Canada with me?” Carney told cheering supporters yesterday. “President Trump is trying to break us, so that America can own us. That will never, that will never, ever happen.”

Carney said that Canada’s old friendly relationship with the United States is “over” and that Canadians “have to look out for ourselves”—a message that clearly galvanized voters.

Meanwhile, conservatives had the big American villains in their corner. Elon Musk had reportedly rigged the X algorithm to bombard voters with conservative content on behalf of right-wing candidate Pierre Poilièvre, who’d embraced Trump-style rhetoric and policies, like cutting foreign aid and attacking the news media. And then Trump thought it would be helpful yesterday to stick his nose into the election on behalf of Poilièvre, as well, despite Canadians absolutely despising him:

Poilièvre, hilariously, just wanted Trump to butt the hell out, as he would have absolutely had the election in the bag had Trump not slapped tariffs on Canada and threatened to annex it in the first place. He claimed on X that he would also stand up to the United States as Prime Minister, though the damage had already been done in voters’ minds.

And then voters hit the polls last night, and conservatives absolutely imploded. In a seismic political shift, not only did Poilièvre lose an election that was supposed to be a lay-up—he lost his own parliamentary seat in the process. Carney will be Canada’s new Prime Minister, carrying on another term for the liberals.

So now, in Trump’s first 100 days, he’s managed to drop to the lowest approval rating a president has had at this point among American voters in 80 years—and he’s also become so globally toxic in such a short period of time that he’s blowing elections for conservatives in countries where he’s not even running. This man will go down as one of the worst heads of state in the history of the world, and I can only hope the global backlash to his destruction grows larger and stronger from here.

Congratulations to Canada for doing the funniest possible thing.