When the Conservatives did unusually well among young voters in Canada’s 2025 federal election, even winning the national student mock vote for the first time in over a decade, one explanation making the rounds was that Canada was following what happened south of the border.

In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, young voters, especially young men, moved toward Donald Trump and the Republicans, a shift many credited to Trump’s strategy of going on podcasts and YouTube to reach younger audiences.

In Canada, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre would later do the same, appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast. Some read that as Canada’s Conservatives picking up the same playbook, even though that particular appearance actually came after the 2025 election.

We reviewed results from nine elections in the Canadian Election Study between 2000 and 2025. We wanted to know whether the same youth shift was indeed happening in Canada. What we found was different.

Seniors moved the most

The bigger shift over the past 25 years is at the other end of the age spectrum: a reliable base of older Conservative........

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