When Donald Trump was first elected US President in 2016, the share of Canadians expressing “confidence” in him polled at just 22 percent. (For Barack Obama, by contrast, the corresponding figure had been 83 percent.) Four years later, perceptions were similar: In advance of the 2020 election, only 15 percent of surveyed Canadians expressed support for Trump. Even among supporters of Canada’s right-of-centre Conservative Party, Joe Biden was more popular than Trump by a 47–33 percent margin.

But the tide shifted in the run-up to last year’s Presidential election: A September 2024 survey indicated that while a majority of Canadians still held negative views of Trump, the Republican candidate was more popular than Kamala Harris among Canadian Conservative voters. Many of these new Canadian Trump fans had come to admire his willingness to speak hard truths (as conservatives view them) about DEI, biological sex, drug policy, and immigration—viewpoints that Canada’s own (less outspoken) conservative politicians often treat as taboo.

Moreover, the 2024 US election took place at a time when Canadian voters of all stripes were growing fed up with Canada’s outgoing Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau—especially his (often sanctimoniously expressed) enthusiasm for progressive causes such as mass immigration, carbon taxes, postmodern intellectual fads (specifically, “postnationalism”), expensive anti-racism programs, incessant “2SLGBTQI+” boosterism, all-ages drag shows, Black Lives Matter, land acknowledgments, gender equity, and intersectionality.