Trump-U.S. Relations Remain Canadians’ Top National Concern at 22% as Liberals Hit 50.6%: Nanos

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For much of 2026, Canada’s political mood has been shaped by a question that sits partly outside its borders: what comes next in the relationship with Donald Trump’s United States? The latest Nanos federal tracking, ending October 16 and released October 20, shows Trump-U.S. relations remain the top national concern at 22.0%, ahead of jobs and the economy at 15.9%, the cost of living at 11.8% and healthcare at 7.8%.

At the same time, the Liberals stand at 50.6%, compared with 28.3% for the Conservatives and 11.5% for the NDP, while Mark Carney leads Pierre Poilievre 61.3% to 21.0% as preferred prime minister. The combination is striking: anxiety about Washington remains unusually prominent even as domestic affordability pressures persist, and the governing Liberals hold a commanding advantage in Nanos’s current national picture.

Trump and U.S. Relations Still Sit at the Top

Nanos’s issue question is deliberately open-ended: respondents are asked to name their most important national concern without being given a list. Against that backdrop, 22.0% naming Trump or U.S. relations is significant because it places a bilateral relationship ahead of traditional domestic files. Jobs and the economy rank second at 15.9%, followed by the cost of living at 11.8% and healthcare at 7.8%.

The direction of travel is just as important as the ranking. Trump-U.S. relations stood at 27.6% on September 18, meaning concern fell 5.6 percentage points over four weeks. Jobs and the economy also declined, from 21.3% to 15.9%, while cost-of-living concern rose from 9.5% to 11.8% and healthcare increased from 5.8% to 7.8%. That looks less like Washington disappearing from view than public attention broadening. For households tied to cross-border jobs or prices, the foreign and domestic stories can easily overlap.

The Liberals Have Opened a 22.3-Point Nanos Lead

The headline political number is the Liberal Party’s 50.6% share in Nanos’s federal ballot tracking. Conservatives are at 28.3%, leaving a 22.3-point Liberal advantage, while the NDP sits at 11.5%. The Bloc Québécois is at 6.2% nationally, the Greens at 2.2% and the People’s Party at 1.2%. On its face, that is a highly lopsided national contest.

The result also continues a strong run for the Liberals. In Nanos tracking released October 13, the Liberals were at 48.8%, Conservatives at 29.5% and the NDP at 11.1%. The latest readings therefore reinforce the same overall order rather than showing a sudden reversal. Still, the weekly figures should not be treated as completely independent snapshots because Nanos uses a four-week rolling sample. The broader takeaway is more durable: in this tracker, the Liberals are above 50% while the Conservatives remain below 30%, creating a gap far wider than Canada’s last federal election produced.

The Gap Looks Dramatic Compared With the 2025 Election

The contrast with the 2025 federal election shows how unusual the current Nanos spread is. Elections Canada’s official results gave the Liberals 43.8% of valid votes, the Conservatives 41.3% and the NDP 6.3%. That election was essentially a two-party contest at the top, with only 2.5 percentage points separating Liberal and Conservative national vote shares.

Compared with those actual results, Nanos’s current Liberal figure is 6.8 points higher, while the Conservative figure is 13.0 points lower and the NDP figure is 5.2 points higher. Those comparisons provide context, but they are not forecasts: an election result records real ballots after a campaign, while polling captures current preferences under different conditions. Elections Canada counted more than 19.6 million valid votes in 2025, whereas Nanos estimates national opinion from a much smaller representative sample. The scale of the present gap is therefore notable, but it should be treated as a snapshot rather than a guaranteed future result.

Carney’s Leadership Advantage Is Even Wider

The leadership numbers are even more tilted than the party ballot. Nanos finds 61.3% of Canadians naming Mark Carney as their preferred prime minister, compared with 21.0% for Pierre Poilievre. NDP leader Avi Lewis is at 3.8%, Yves-François Blanchet at 1.9%, Maxime Bernier at 1.7% and Elizabeth May at 1.6%, while roughly 9% are unsure.

Carney’s preferred-prime-minister score is 10.7 points higher than the Liberal ballot share, suggesting his personal appeal currently reaches beyond the party’s immediate vote intention. A separate Leger poll conducted October 9 to 12 found 58% approval for Carney and 57% satisfaction with the federal government. Those are different questions and cannot be compared one-for-one with Nanos’s preferred-prime-minister measure, but the direction is consistent: Carney currently carries strong personal ratings. In a political environment dominated by negotiations, tariffs and national economic risk, assessments of leadership have become another important part of the federal picture.

The Trade Fight Makes Washington a Pocketbook Issue

The concern about Washington is rooted in more than political rhetoric. The federal government says the United States imposed a 50% tariff on C$27.6 billion of Canadian goods effective August 22. Ottawa responded with counter-tariffs of 15%, 25% and 50% beginning September 8, covering C$27.6 billion of U.S. imports and matching the relevant U.S. rates on targeted products.

The Canadian measures reach sectors including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics and electronics. Ottawa also announced a C$7.5-billion package of new and enhanced support for workers and businesses, building on nearly C$25 billion in previously announced supports. Those figures help explain why “U.S. relations” can function as an economic concern as much as a diplomatic one. A tariff dispute can alter contract prices, sourcing decisions, investment plans and hiring expectations long before every household sees a direct line item on a bill. For exposed industries, developments in Washington can quickly become local business decisions.

CUSMA Remains in Force, but Its Future Is Still Being Negotiated

The uncertainty also extends to the continental trade framework itself. On July 1, the United States, Canada and Mexico held the required joint review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known in Canada as CUSMA. The U.S. Trade Representative said Washington did not agree to renew the agreement in its current form. Crucially, however, the agreement did not expire and remains in force while the parties continue dealing with outstanding issues.

That distinction matters for businesses trying to plan beyond the next quarter. On October 2, the U.S. Trade Representative opened a public consultation process ahead of the 2027 joint review, with comments due January 12, 2027. The formal process makes clear that the trade relationship is still being renegotiated rather than settled. For an automaker deciding where to source components, or a manufacturer considering a new plant, uncertainty over future rules can affect decisions even before a tariff is paid. That gives the Canada-U.S. file unusually long political and economic reach.

Canada Is Diversifying, but the U.S. Still Dominates Trade

Canada has been trying to diversify its trade, but the numbers show why the United States remains impossible to treat as just another market. Global Affairs Canada’s State of Trade 2026 report says 72% of Canadian goods exports went to the United States in 2025. Services were more diversified, but the U.S. still took 53% of Canadian service exports.

There are signs of movement elsewhere. Canadian exports to non-U.S. markets rose 11.1% in 2025, pushing the non-U.S. share of exports to its highest level since 1981. Canadian service exports also reached a record C$240 billion and accounted for almost one-quarter of all exports. Yet the bilateral relationship remains enormous: the U.S. Trade Representative estimates U.S. goods-and-services trade with Canada totaled US$872.3 billion in 2025. Diversification can reduce concentration over time, but it does not erase the immediate significance of the American market. That economic reality helps give Canada-U.S. relations political weight far beyond ordinary foreign affairs.

Cost of Living Has Not Disappeared From the Political Agenda

Domestic pressures remain the clearest counterweight to the Washington story. Nanos has the cost of living at 11.8% as the third-ranked national concern, up from 9.5% four weeks earlier. Its separate Bloomberg-Nanos Canadian Confidence Index rose to 51.68 in mid-October from 49.86 four weeks earlier, but it remained below its long-run average of 54.66. Pocketbook confidence, covering personal finances and job security, stood at 54.94.

Leger’s October research points to the same tension from another angle. Canadians gave trade diversification the government’s highest average performance rating at 6.5 out of 10, while housing affordability scored 5.0 and the cost of living 4.9. Nearly two-thirds fell into Leger’s “disappointed” category on housing affordability, at 63%, and the cost of living, at 64%. The political environment therefore contains two simultaneous pressures: external economic risk from the United States and unresolved financial strain at home.

Other Pollsters Show the Same Leader, but a Smaller Gap

Nanos is not alone in showing the Liberals ahead, although its 22.3-point margin is larger than several other recent national polls. Leger’s October 9-to-12 fieldwork put the Liberals at 48%, Conservatives at 33% and NDP at 8%, a 15-point Liberal lead. Abacus Data’s October 2-to-13 tracking found 46% Liberal, 34% Conservative and 9% NDP, producing a 12-point gap.

Liaison Strategies, using interviews collected October 4 to 17, reported Liberals at 45%, Conservatives at 30% and NDP at 14%, again a 15-point lead. Taken together, the three outside pollsters support the directional finding that the Liberals are currently ahead nationally, but they also show why a single poll should not be treated as a precise election forecast. Field dates, question wording, sampling methods and weighting can produce different estimates. The common signal across several current national measurements is a Liberal lead; considerably more uncertainty surrounds exactly how large that advantage really is.

The Nanos Methodology Makes the Trend More Important Than One Week

Nanos’s methodology is important to understanding what the numbers can and cannot say. The October 16 tracking is based on 1,016 randomly selected adults in a four-week rolling average of roughly 250 interviews a week, recruited through random-digit dialing of cellphones and landlines. Nanos reports a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, and weights results using 2021 Census information. The reported response rate is 6%.

Because the oldest week is dropped and a new week is added, consecutive releases share most of their interviews. That design smooths changes over time, but it also means week-to-week movements should not be mistaken for completely new national samples. The most defensible conclusion is therefore narrower than a causal political claim: Canadians currently rank Trump-U.S. relations first among unprompted national concerns, while Nanos simultaneously records a large Liberal lead and a much larger Carney leadership advantage. The data show those developments occurring together; they do not, by themselves, prove that concern about Trump caused the Liberal lead.

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