Let’s be clear here: PP is not a smart man.

Yes, he has a background of being adopted by an openly-gay man in a stable relationship with his partner, the both being public school teachers, and he married an immigrant, and he’s a native French speaker from Saskatchewan. By all accounts, he would be an NDP darling. I don’t know how he ended up in with the SOCONs that would vilify his parent’s line of work and interfere with their collective bargaining rights, outlaw them getting married, outlaw them adopting the young PP in the first place, and restricting his wife from entering the country, on top of being ‘French’… But now that he’s with the SOCONs, he’s picked up on the magical formula for success to winning the CPC leadership: campaign on the right - the far right - as right as you can go. Now he has the same problem O’Toole has: appear moderate enough to the electorate so people outside the CPC will vote for you. Problem is, the more on the right you are in the CPC, the less moderate you can appear in the General Election, and thus, perform worse. If you swing too far moderate though, you can lose your base support in the CPC… His image is so closely tied with the far, far right that he will crumble fast with his own people as he starts to stammer out any policy that isn’t the most vile and deplorable garbage that the basement dwelling trolls demand, and the LPC will press him on the fact that he has no plan or any thoughts at all. Also, if he does try to communicate some of his terrible ideas, they can easily get shot through by the LPC and NDP - again, he’s not a smart man and has made some very stupid statements that are easy shot apart by numbers and facts. His thoughts are designed to appeal to losers - people that are suckers for get-rich schemes and think some ‘group’ in Canada are the source of their woes; call them immigrants, or gays, those on pogey, or unwed mothers… or even “them-there so-called ‘experts’ that are telling us vaccines work.”

That being said, he’s going to get a boost in two areas: the continued crumbling of the PPC, and growing disdain with the LPC. This is probably already reflected in the poll numbers. It’s really the LPC’s election to lose, and as long as he’s passing enough scraps to the NDP to stay in power and fight another day at improving image, the LPC can turn around the Trudeau image: he’s working hard for the country - it affected his marriage, or at the very least: look ladies, he’s single! There’s no way that they can save PP’s image. Milhouse with the glasses, Squinty without the glasses, are cute names but the Proud Boy love for him for all his dog-whistling, and open association and appreciation with the truckers are the giant anchor around his neck and the others get to punish him for that if he tries to avoid communicating his stupid ideas.