FIRST READING: Why record early turnout may not necessarily be good news for Conservatives

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter that throughout the 2025 election will be a daily digest of campaign goings-on, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. TOP STORY Although record-breaking turnout for advance voting is being interpreted by some as a point in the Conservatives’ favour, it could just be a reflection of the fact that Canadians like to vote early now. At least, that was the warning contained in a Wednesday online post by Angelo Isidorou, executive director of the B.C. Conservative Party. “The reality is that Canadian voters are normalizing to voting early,” he wrote, warning fellow conservatives against getting too excited about the “mirage” of advance voting. Over four days of advance voting on the Easter weekend, a record 7.3 million Canadians cast their ballots. This represents a 25 per cent increase over the advance voting turnout of the 2021 election. Voter turnout may end up being the singular factor that decides whether the 2025 election is a Liberal or Conservative victory. The Conservatives are strongest among younger voters, a demographic that is notorious for voter apathy. In the 2021 election, just 47 per cent of voters under 24 cast a ballot, as compared to 75 per cent among voters over 65. Although the Tories have spent the entire election struggling to keep up in national polls, it’s an entirely different story among young voters.   One of the more dramatic illustrations of this trend was an Abacus Data survey from last week showing that voters under 30 were the strongest single age demographic for the Tories. Respondents aged 18 to 29 supported the Conservatives at a rate of 42 per cent against just 35 per cent for the Liberals. Among voters over 60, by contrast, the Liberals held a commanding 14-point lead (49 per cent Liberal, 34 per cent Conservative).   Thus, if youth participation ticks upwards by just a few percentage points as compared to prior elections, it would represent a critical net gain for the Conservatives. “Every percentage point of HIGHER voter turnout benefits the (Conservative Party),” reads a recent X post by conservative strategist Nick Kouvalis. The more young people who show up, the more it dilutes the ”potency of 65+ year old voters” who are disproportionately in the tank for the Liberals. Conservatives placing their faith in voter turnout could also take comfort in a lengthy track record of heightened voter participation correlating with the defeat of an incumbent government.   That was certainly the case in 2015, when the Liberals first entered office on their own tide of youth votes: The 68.3 per cent turnout in that election was the highest since 1993. The two Canadian elections that have witnessed the highest-ever rates of voter turnout (1958 and 1984) also happen to be the ones which saw record-breaking landslides for the Progressive Conservatives. But Isidorou has some experience in being mislead by advance voting numbers, and is warning that they may not indicate a turnaround in voter turnout.   B.C.’s October provincial election similarly saw record turnout to advance polls. On the first day of advance voting, there were 171,381 ballots cast, shattering the prior record of 126,491. At the time, B.C. Conservatives interpreted the advance polling turnout as the early signs of a “blue wave.” “We thought we were looking at a historic result,” said Isidorou. But the B.C. Conservatives ended up being wrong on two counts: The B.C. election resulted in a majority government for the B.C. NDP, and the final voter turnout wasn’t even all that high. The election saw 58.5 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot. As recently as 2017, voter turnout had been as high as 61.2 per cent. All that had really changed is that British Columbians were voting earlier, which Isidorou chalked up to “convenience” and “partisanship.” “Hyper partisanship has made it such that everyone knows where their vote is going from day one, so no point waiting,” he wrote. Isidorou predicted that the 2025 election is still likely to yield high voter turnout, “but I caution extrapolating early voting into election day because we faced the identical mirage in BC.” LET’S POLL It looks like at least two party leaders are poised to lose their seat on Monday. Projections by the website 338Canada show that the B.C. riding of Burnaby South is now leaning Liberal, while Saanich-Gulf Islands is leaning Conservative. Those would be the ridings of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, respectively. POLICY CORNER It probably got the least attention of anything in the Conservative platform, but at the bottom of the party’s promises in regards to public safety, they included a pledge to “defend women’s safety by repealing Commissioner’s Directive 100.” The directive refers to a Trudeau government order under which male offenders can transfer to women’s facilities by completing a form self-identifying as female. Prior to the directive, such transfers were only allowed if an inmate had undergone sex reassignment surgeries. Get all of these insights and more into your inbox by signing up for the First Reading newsletter here.

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