To the Point for the Week of August 23, 2026
Cooler nights and morning dew means summer is coming to an end, and with that, a return to our regular weekly To the Point schedule. We hope everyone had a wonderful and eventful summer.
The timing of the return to our weekly cadence could not be more appropriate as the country reels from the latest installment of the ongoing Canada-US trade conflict. For this week’s edition, we look at whether incumbent politicians benefit from a politically volatile Trump administration.
THE INCUMBENCY DIVIDEND OF TRUMP’S DISORDER
Hot Take
President Donald Trump’s volatility provides a political advantage to incumbents at every level of government in Canada.
We get it. That’s a hot take. How could Donald Trump, the most virulently disliked U.S. political figure ever by Canadians (President George W. Bush comes in a distant second, and even with Bush there’s a subtle forgiveness granted to him over the U.S. invasion of Iraq now that he paints portraits or whatever), be a political boost to incumbent politicians here in Canada? Taken together, the qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that a political environment overwhelmingly shaped by the frantic and erratic nature of Trump’s presidency tends to benefit incumbent leaders with the perceived authority and credibility to respond.
We sincerely apologize for being academic about this, but it’s important to note the research on how political fear and anxiety can influence voter behaviour. Research by Marcus, Neuman and MacKuen on their idea of “affective intelligence” posits that voters have two affective systems: a “disposition system” and a “surveillance system.”
The disposition system is made up of learned political habits, cues and attachments that are typical in a “normal” political environment. In other words, voters fall back on party identification, ideology, preconceived perceptions of a political leader and the issues that matter to them. When the political environment becomes uncertain, unpredictable and, frankly, frightening, voters’ surveillance system is activated. The anxiety generated by events like the 9/11 terror attacks or the COVID-19 pandemic interrupts voters’ preconceived judgments and motivates them to seek reassurance, stability and control. Voters gravitate to political leaders they believe are in the best position to respond, which is often an incumbent that has the capacity to act.
Trump’s erratic presidency gives incumbents—particularly those with executive power—the chance to look decisive, strong and resilient, even if their record prior to Trump’s second term is perceived as a failure or their policy response to U.S. tariffs has been ineffective.
Trump’s impact on the federal political landscape is obvious. The Prime Minister continues to retain overwhelming support and a high approval rating virtually every time Trump goes off, and both online and offline sentiment reinforce the polling picture. What makes this phenomenon more acute in the Canadian context is that it is not limited to a single level of government and is something incumbents are more than happy to leverage to support their re-election campaigns.
A simple Google search of various Ontario mayors—in the middle of municipal election campaigns—including Hamilton’s Andrea Horwath, Windsor’s Drew Dilkens, Brampton’s Patrick Brown and, of course, Toronto’s Olivia Chow, shows they all took to CNN to respond to the latest round of tariff and trade hysteria, unknowingly appealing to voters’ surveillance systems.
Mayor Chow doubled down again today at an announcement, saying, “Donald Trump is attacking us again! And he’s a bully. In this city, we stand up against bullies.” Even current Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish took to X to exclaim that her city will defend against Trump’s “renaming” of Lake Ontario.
We would not do this thesis justice without looking at the quantitative impact of the Trump phenomenon on Premier Doug Ford and the Ontario PC Party’s position in provincial politics. Polling over the last six months has been less than favourable for the Premier. The Ontario Liberals have held a slight lead in the overall horserace, with strength in the 416 and gains in the 905, while Ford’s personal numbers have fallen to their lowest point since he was first elected in 2018.
After trade talks fell through and the war of words between the Premier and the President ensued, Liaison Strategies conducted a poll earlier this week that showed the PCs rebounding toward majority territory at 39%, with the leaderless Ontario Liberals trailing by four points at 35%. His approval rating also jumped 12 points to 36%.
Even still, 61% disapprove of his performance and 72% believe the province is on the wrong track. Nevertheless, voters are reverting to surveillance mode, looking for political actors to provide assurance, project strength and give the impression of being decisively in control of the situation.
In typical Doug Ford style, his very direct political response and fiery rhetoric toward President Trump are the type of response that appeal to political voters in the current environment. He’s perceived as decisive by immediately backing Prime Minister Carney’s decision to suspend trade talks, signalling resolve by committing to respond forcefully with every conceivable option at his disposal, and reassuring workers and businesses that the government will use various levers to support and protect Ontario’s economy.
No level of government can leverage President Trump’s chaos more than the federal government. The Prime Minister has already been given more leeway to act than perhaps Stephen Harper during the 2008 global financial crisis. The latest fallout in trade talks has produced another “rally around the flag” moment for the Prime Minister.
For the domestic political audience, the Prime Minister’s statement calling trade negotiators back to Ottawa signalled resolute political agency and authority; the Prime Minister presented himself as defending Canada’s sovereignty and destiny at the negotiating table. Anxious Canadians received clarity, resolve and a leader believed to be in control.
The advantage for Carney and the federal Liberals is so acute that it provides cover against accusations of political gamesmanship, governance and accountability failures.
The Prime Minister pointed to alleged U.S. demands to weaken or exempt U.S. companies from specific French-language and Canadian-content rules around product labelling, as well as streaming and online content, as a reason for pulling the plug at the 11th hour. The reaction from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was bewilderment, essentially saying they couldn’t care less about those issues and that they were not sticking points in the discussions. In fact, Lutnick accused the Prime Minister of using that excuse as a cudgel against the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in the recently launched provincial election in Quebec. The PQ’s ten-point lead at the beginning of August is down to a single point. Even if it were true that the Prime Minister ended critical trade negotiations to protect federalism in Quebec, the Prime Minister gets the unquestionable benefit of the doubt due to politically ingrained views of the President and his administration.
Carney also benefits from the President’s disorderliness, which can obscure potential failures in governance and accountability. The Prime Minister has not publicly released the final terms of the rejected deal. Leaked information, muddled by political machines, places a giant question mark around exactly what it was that the Prime Minister rejected. Perhaps even worse, the Prime Minister’s own description of events as Canada being under attack and at war was not enough to reconvene and address the Canadian Parliament. Instead, the Prime Minister will depart for Europe—yet again—to attend the European Union State of the Union on September 16 and address the European Parliament the next day.
It doesn’t matter. Trump’s perceived lack of control has motivated voters to afford the Prime Minister enough grace not to require that he explain to the Canadian people—in the people’s house—the state of affairs with the United States of America.
The risk for political incumbents is time. Cynically speaking, Trump’s current value as a political advantage lies in the fact that his administration creates situations that are politically urgent and credible. The risk is that crisis fatigue sets in, and the volatile nature of Trump’s administration simply becomes a reality for voters to adapt to rather than react to. When that happens, the incumbent becomes the problem for failing to respond to the crises effectively.
Trump’s term is up in two years, after which the fear generated by his rhetoric, actions and policy moves will dissipate, and Canadian voters will return to relying on their disposition system of familiar political habits, inclinations and viewpoints to make sense of the political environment. Perhaps then all the bluster over Trump’s insistence on a potential third term becomes something to be desired by political incumbents.
Christopher Mourtos, writing on behalf of ONpoint Strategy Group
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