Will Poilievre win the byelection battle but lose the leadership war?

To begin with, I think anyone who expects Pierre Poilievre to lose the Battle River-Crowfoot byelection next Monday is living in a dream world.

Its an understandable dream, of course, but just a dream nevertheless.

Here are 338Canada polling results from August 10:

Battle River-Crowfoot is a CPC riding. 

The total vote in this riding in April was 65,000 people, and 53,000 of them voted for the CPC. 

For the last quarter-century, the Conservative vote in the riding has never been less than 70 per cent.

This time independent Bonnie Critchley has run the highest profile campaign against Poilievre -- likely her vote is most of the "Independent" 11 percent in the top chart. 

But as for the chance that she might actually win the seat? Nope.

However, winning the byelection doesn't mean that Poilievre's problems are over -- in fact, they may be just beginning.

If his winning percentage is as lackluster as 338Canada is predicting -- just 70-ish percent, in the strongest conservative riding in Canada -- the party isn't going to be impressed. 

And Poilievre's boasts about how he increased the CPC seats and votes in April aren't going to cut any ice with a party that sees itself being dragged further and further down by an unpopular leader who can't lead and won't follow and isn't getting out of his own way.

Here are some comments about what is happening:

Dave Cournoyer / Daveberta - Alberta politics and elections

Battle River-Crowfoot by-election should be a Poilievre landslide
A Liberal win in this sprawling rural riding would be one in a trillion
...Battle River-Crowfoot is a massive sprawling rural riding spread over more than 52,500 square kilometres. It takes almost four hours to drive from the Town of Tofield on the northern edge of the riding to the Village of Empress in its southeast corner - and it’s worth the drive. From the bald flat prairies as far as the eye can see to the coulees and hoodoos of Badlands that were once home to radical coal miners and now house world famous dinosaur exhibits, it’s a spectacular part of the province that is worth visiting for its nature and history.
Battle River-Crowfoot is also the safest Conservative voting riding in Alberta. Poilievre running here is like Naheed Nenshi running in Edmonton-Strathcona or Danielle Smith running in Brooks-Medicine Hat. It’s an extremely safe bet.
...Poilievre should be easily elected in this Conservative stronghold but if he is not, that could spell big trouble for his future prospects ahead of a leadership review vote at his party’s convention in Calgary in January 2026. 

Don Newman / Policy Magazine (Canadian Politics and Public Policy) July 16, 2025

Pierre Poilievre’s Fate is Now a Numbers Game
...after a federal election that made him the third consecutive Tory leader in a decade to lose to the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre’s leadership of the Conservative Party is now a numbers game: His vote percentage in a byelection, his support in a 2026 leadership review and his polling numbers at the beginning of next year, ahead of that review, will determine his future.
At the moment, Poilievre’s numbers, according to a recent Research co. poll, are 44% personal approval vs. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s 61%. The Conservative Party lags 10 points behind the Liberals at 37%.
Poilievre’s future is in doubt because, in addition to the Conservatives losing an election in April that had been a sure-thing, projected majority just weeks before, he lost his own Ottawa seat of Carleton, which he had held through successive elections since 2004. Although they lost, Poilievre and the Conservatives spun the election results as a victory; the party had won 144 seats in the House of Commons and captured 41.3% of the popular vote. That was the highest total of any Conservative Party since 1988.
But they still lost an election that for over the past two years public opinion polls said they would win in a landslide. Circumstances changed with the election of Carney as Liberal leader, Poilievre was slow to adapt, and now he is running in a byelection in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot trying to regain a seat in the Commons.
He will very likely win that seat; the question is by how much. And the answer to that question will impact on another vote he has to face in January. Under the Conservative Party constitution, the election defeat has triggered a mandatory review of Poilievre’s leadership and a vote on whether he should continue as party leader. That vote will be held at a party convention next January 29th in Calgary. He is also likely to win that vote, and, again, the question is by how much. The answer will determine his fate.
Battle River-Crowfoot is a riding that has been a Conservative stronghold for years. In the recent election, Damien Kurek won 82% of the vote. That result makes it clear why Poilievre and the party wanted him to run there. But the leader’s challenge is to roll up enough votes to make a similar popular vote showing to Kurek, and that may not be as easy a task as it might look....
The instant conventional wisdom about the race is that if the results for the Conservative leader in Battle River-Crowfoot fall below 75% of the vote, he will still win handily but be damaged nonetheless. If he can crack 80%, he’ll be out of the woods.

We'll see if that prediction is true -- Poilievre just isn't an inspiring candidate anymore, and his standing in the party must be slipping as a result. He even had to get rid of Jenni Byrne, which may be a significant sign of Poilievre panic: 

Jenni Byrne was the mastermind behind the Conservatives “lost decade”. Stephen Harper ❌ 2015 Andrew Scheer ❌ 2019 Erin O’Toole ❌ 2021 Pierre Poilievre ❌ 2025

— Elbows Up, eh 🇨🇦 (@abunchofmalarkey.bsky.social) August 9, 2025 at 2:10 PM

Let them keep doing it 😂

— Bill the Beaver 🇨🇦 (@TrueNorthStr0ng) August 11, 2025

Because its clear now that Poilievre still has no good ideas for Canada. Here's the latest idiocy:

Poilievre wants two pipelines built by spring. He doesn’t even have a seat in Parliament yet. His “Sovereignty Act” isn’t leadership—it’s a stunt. CBC cuts through the spin. That’s why he wants it gone. r.pebmac.ca/https://www.... #SaveTheCBC #CdnPoli #NoMAGAinCanada

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— Save the CBC 🇨🇦✌️ (@savethecbc.bsky.social) August 8, 2025 at 9:34 AM

Wayne Horton

The Canadian Sovereignty Act: An Open Letter to Pierre Poilievre
A Reality Check on Tariffs, Timelines, and Twenty Years of Grievance Politics
....Bottom line: what you’re offering isn’t a sovereignty plan; it’s a vanity project and a grift. Pretending now that you have some great master plan and heretofore undetected business and negotiation prowess isn’t convincing. If you had ideas, you had 20 years to present them—yet you delivered nothing but baseless grievance, loudly. That might have bought you party donations for a while, but it has never delivered real solutions for Canada. Your “new program” won’t force Washington to lift tariffs; it misstates what Ottawa has already fixed; and it leans on delusional fantasies about megaproject timelines.
Canada needs calm, competent, fact-based leadership in a manufactured trade war—not a divisive, misleading, gaslighting demagogue peddling slogans between donation appeals. And Battle River–Crowfoot has the chance, one week from today, to reject that record and choose an MP who will actually represent them.
I, for one, hope they do.

Yes, I wish that could be true. As usual, the Beaverton gets it:

Hasn't life been better without having to hear this loser of a human speak? On August 18, residents of Battle River - Crowfoot could make that a permanent joy. 🙏 #cdnpoli #abpoli #camrose #stettler #drumheller

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— elcanaco.bsky.social (@elcanaco.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 4:44 PM

I haven't seen any serious discussions yet about which Conservative MPs or provincial premiers might be in the running for the CPC leadership at some point. Ford of course is the premier everyone would expect to run. This spring Jason Kenney seemed to be trying to raise his profile again too. Nova Scotia's Tim Houston might have thought about it too, except the ridiculous MapleMAGA blow-back over his completely justified fire ban may have tanked his chances. If Poilievre's Battle River-Crowfoot result is as lackluster as it is projected to be, it won't take long for the whispers to start and the horserace jockeying to begin.