Singh says NDP faces 'massive challenges' as voters look to Liberals, Conservatives to battle Trump

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has admitted for the first time that his party is facing "massive challenges" as its polling numbers hover near single digits and voters look elsewhere for a champion to battle U.S. President Donald Trump. 

"Let's be clear there's massive challenges, I've got no illusions about that. There's some serious challenges that we're up against," he said in Toronto on Tuesday. 

Singh said in every election his party is asked about their electoral relevance in a country that has never had an NDP prime minister, but he insisted he'll continue to fight it out for the next five weeks regardless. 

"Will I give up on fighting for people that need me to fight for them? No, hell no. I'm never gonna give up. I don't care what's going on. I'm always gonna be there to fight for people," he said. 

Singh said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Liberal Leader Mark Carney are only interested in fighting for billionaires and corporations while he will focus on fighting for ordinary Canadians. 

"I'm always gonna fight for the people that need it most," Singh said. 

The NDP leader made his remarks a day after former NDP leader Tom Mulcair penned a column for CTV in which he said the only question Canadians have in mind is who is best to do battle with Trump. 

"That's why this is shaping up to be a race between the ruling Liberals and the Opposition Conservatives, with little room to spare for the others," he said.

"If you can't seriously say you're going to form a government that can take on Trump, then get out of the way and let the only real contenders have at it."

'One of its worst results in at least 30 years': Analyst

According to the CBC Poll Tracker, which aggregates public opinion polling, the NDP were neck-and-neck with the Liberals in mid-December with about 20 per cent support to the Liberals' 22 per cent. The Conservatives had about 43 per cent support. 

But since former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced he would step down, Trump began waging economic and political war on Canada and Carney became the new Liberal leader, the polls have completely switched. 

The CBC Poll Tracker now has the Conservatives down to 37 per cent support with the Liberals rising to 40 per cent and the NDP clinging to less than 10 per cent.

Éric Grenier, who runs CBC's Poll Tracker, said the rise in the Liberal numbers is part of the reason for the NDP slide.

"To see how quickly the NDP vote tanked with the change of [Liberal] leadership suggests that a lot of those voters were parking their vote with the NDP. But as soon as another alternative popped up, they were ready to abandon the party," he said.

This is all taking place against a backdrop of uncertainty as Trump imposes tariffs and threatens Canada's sovereignty. That uncertainty means core NDP campaign issues such as affordability and housing are being forced to share space with concerns over the volatility that now defines the Canada/U.S. relationship. 

"You probably have to go back to the 1990s to find the NDP polling so poorly," Grenier said.

"If the NDP continues to poll at this level for a steady, consistent amount of time, the NDP could be on track for one of its worst results in at least 30 years."