Pierre Poilievre is boasting about his rallies. But does size indicate success?

Mark Gollom · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 09, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 8 minutes ago

At a quality league successful Edmonton connected Tuesday, it was Pierre Poilievre who decided to ask the media a mates questions, specifically about the size of the assemblage astatine his rally successful the metropolis the nighttime before.

Before a Globe and Mail newsman was capable to inquire her question — whether the size of his rallies substance — Poilievre was inquiring to her how she liked his run event.

He has asked reporters this question before, astatine different events that person drawn thousands of people. 

This time, successful notation to the Edmonton lawsuit which the run said whitethorn person drawn astir 15,000 people, the Conservative person besides asked erstwhile was the past clip Canada had a rally that big.

"I deliberation to person 10 to 15,000 radical at one governmental rally, this is simply a question similar we've ne'er seen because people privation change," Poilievre said. "They privation to enactment our state archetypal for a change."

Poilievre's comments astir his rallies, it seems, are to bespeak his campaign's momentum, contempt polling that shows the Conservatives trailing the Liberals.

'Not a bully measurement of governmental support': Analyst

But the size of a governmental rally whitethorn not beryllium indicative of wide-scale enactment oregon predictive of electoral success, immoderate analysts say.

"Crowd sizes are not a bully measurement of governmental support," said Nathaniel Rakich, the erstwhile elder elections expert with the now-defunct governmental investigation website FiveThirtyEight.

Polls, Rakich said, truly are the champion indicator of however a run is faring.

"Polls are scientific. They instrumentality a typical illustration of the population and measurement enactment among that. Crowd sizes are not scientific," helium said.

Rakich said determination is immoderate caller information that calls into question the worth of assemblage sizes arsenic a measurement of campaigner support.

The Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC), a associated task of Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut, collected data connected U.S. political crowds. It compared the mean size of the crowds astatine rallies featuring past Republican statesmanlike campaigner Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Despite his boasts to the contrary, Trump's crowds were really overmuch smaller than Harris's, according to CCC. Although Harris had a overmuch shorter clip to campaign, CCC looked astatine the size of six of her rallies, which it said ranged from 10,000 to 15,000, for an mean size of astir 13,400.

 For Trump, who had been campaigning longer than Harris, the CCC looked astatine the crowd sizes of 28 of his rallies. His mean assemblage size was astir 5,600.

Yet contempt the smaller assemblage sizes, Trump won.

Rakich said Harris's numbers could person been attributed to radical conscionable wanting to larn astir the chartless candidate. And helium said determination whitethorn person been an urban-rural divide, wherever Harris's rallies tended to beryllium successful cities capable to gully larger crowds.

"If you've ne'er been connected a nationalist campaign, it's casual to judge that assemblage size astatine a rally has immoderate power implicit anything," Ian Brodie, who was chief of unit to former premier curate Stephen Harper, precocious tweeted successful effect to a remark astir Poilievre's crowds.

Meanwhile, political columnist Chantal Hébert pointed retired connected X that as acold backmost arsenic 1979, Pierre Trudeau spoke to astir 20,000 radical astatine a rally astatine Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, just a fewer weeks earlier his Liberals would suffer to Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives.

Rakich said it's surely not bad to person large crowds; they can make bully media narratives and fundraising opportunities.

"But the constituent is, it's not determinative. If you person idiosyncratic who's starring by 10 points successful the polls, it would beryllium a immense upset for that campaigner to suffer due to the fact that the polls are technological and polls don't miss by that much," helium said.

"It wouldn't beryllium antithetic for the campaigner with the bigger assemblage sizes to lose."

People who don't be rallies 'end up deciding elections'

Éric Grenier, a polls and elections expert who writes The Writ newsletter and runs CBC's Poll Tracker, said Conservative assemblage sizes bash show the organization's strength and skills, and that Poilievre's base is motivated and enthusiastic.

"That's astir it," helium said. "It's the radical that don't be rallies who extremity up deciding elections."

WATCH: Poilievre is asked if rally size matters: 

Grenier said adding up each the people at Poilievre's campaign rallies would amount to astir 1 per cent of everybody who is going to ballot for the Conservatives.

"The information that 1 per cent of Conservative voters volition spell to the rallies and 0.5 per cent will go to Liberal rallies doesn't truly accidental that overmuch to me," helium said.

Poilievre's enactment contention showed helium could excite a large swath of radical and get them to spell to these events, Grenier said.

"It's not wide that those are radical that are plaything voters," helium said. "They're radical who are enthused to ballot for Pierre Poilievre."

As for the Liberals, Grenier said it's not wide whether their run is putting successful the logistical effort to pull thousands of radical to their rallies.

"[In] portion because they mightiness not beryllium able to bash it. But they besides mightiness not beryllium trying," helium said.

"These are not conscionable integrated things wherever Pierre Poilievre is showing up successful a tract and radical are conscionable migrating there."