Steelman · slot C
The 46% is Trump's gift
A Canadian pollster would argue —Strip Trump out of the picture and Carney is a rookie politician with a thin domestic record, a watered-down housing plan, and stalled trade talks — numbers that would normally have a first-year prime minister underwater. What's actually holding him at 46% is that Canadians have relocated the threat. When the danger is tariffs and 51st-state taunts from Washington, voters stop grading the government on groceries and rents and start grading it on who can stand at the border. That suspension of normal scorekeeping is doing the heavy lifting here, not the Davos speech and not the budget. It's also why he can afford months abroad and a majority secured by floor-crossings rather than ballots: the external threat is buying him time the domestic ledger wouldn't.