How Much Damage Can Maxime Bernier Do The Cons?

When Maxime Bernier decided to break away from Andrew Scheer and his "intellectually and morally corrupt" Cons.

And in the process made Scheer look like a cowardly leader. Or no leader at all.

The big question was how much damage could Bernier do to his former party?

Now a first poll is in, and Scheer must be quivering in his boots.



For the Abacus poll suggests the damage could be considerable. 



A Bernier Party could draw support away from all the main political parties, but the Cons would be hardest hit.



And this result in Quebec would be devastating.



For it alone would almost certainly guarantee another Liberal majority.

And when one out of every five Cons believes that their party is too intellectually corrupt to be reformed... 



It's obvious that Scheer has a problem.

Of course this whole poll is speculative, since Bernier hasn't yet formed a party.

Although he claims he is hard at work doing just that.



But this is the bottom line:

The results show that a considerable minority of Conservative voters find Mr. Bernier and his message attractive and confirm that he has the potential to divide and weaken the prospects of the Conservative Party heading into the 2019 election. 

The most important impacts could be felt in Ontario and Quebec, where 199 of 338 seats are at stake. Seats the Conservatives might be considering potential gains could have a greater chance of falling into the Liberal column.

Bernier has more potential support than many might have imagined. More than enough to form a party.

And the grubby Scheer is caught between a rock and a hard place.

Given that 20% and 40% of current conservative voters agree to some extent with the views expressed by Mr. Bernier, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer can ill afford to ignore this threat. 

However, if he puts too much emphasis on trying to assuage these sentiments, he risks alienating mainstream voters who do not find Mr. Bernier’s arguments appealing, and also drawing constant attention to the fact that there are divisions within his Party. 

Which is of course exactly where we want the Cons.

Fighting themselves, trying to out racist each other.

And heading for oblivion...