Wearing his 6-year-old daughter on his shoulders, Pierre Poilievre, leader of a conservative party running to Canada, passed through a crowd of well-intentioneds in his Ottawa Electoral District.

“Hey, there, Mr. Alexander!” He said, grabbing his hand of Mark Alexander, whose dairy farm politician visited 21 years ago at his first run for duty.

Mr. Poilievre recalled that he was sitting at the agricultural kitchen table. He also recalled that Mr. Alexander did not receive his conservative membership card because “the party messed up.”

“Then I came with you and came to the cow’s milk,” Mr. Poilievre continued, as Farmer’s wife Lynn entered in: “Yes, you are!”

After asked about four family members – by name – Mr. Poilievre continued on. “He really cares about people,” said Mrs. Alexander, who planned to vote for Mr. Poilievre. “And he has an amazing memory. It’s like he’ll remember those very little details about the first moment we met.”

Mr. Poilievre, 45 – aims to defeat Prime Minister Mark Carney, 60, and end a decade of liberal rule in the general election of Canada on April 28 – is considered one of the most dead campaigns, communicators and politicians.

Mr. Poilievre seemed to be destined to become the next leader of Canada while his party was sitting on what looked like an insurmountable lead on the pollings Just a few months ago, when former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which Mr. Poilievre was for two years of banging, was forced to deviate.

“Pierre Poilievre is one of the most cousin and aggressive removal artists,” said Ken Bossenkool, a conservative who worked for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a conservative. “He has the opportunity to find the opponent’s weakness and, and only go to them in a way that is devastating.”

“He understands the political game and has played that political game successfully, better than almost anyone else,” Mr. Bossenkool added.

But the leadership of conservatives of 25 percentage points at the polls quickly turned into a single -digit deficit because Mr. Trump became the dominant issue of Rase. Surveys show that voters believe that Mr. Carney is better suited to handling the US president.

The campaign of Mr. Poilievre, however, said relatively little about Mr. Trump and continued to focus on the attack on the liberals. Many voters associate Poilievre with Mr. Trump, say analysts, a relationship that has become a responsibility.

“He and his team will have to recognize that the game is currently playing in the second arena and how you play in that arena may require a demonstration of other political skills,” said Tim Powers, a conservative who worked on several campaigns.

“The part shows people with a relativeness that is not always the loudest, most difficult, most aggressive in the room,” Mr. Powers added. “Yes you can listen, that the fight does not always throw the first blow.”

The angry style of Mr. Poilievre’s policy has directed the fatigue of the Canadian voter and frustration towards Mr. Trudeauu, but now that he is gone, and Canada is threatened, many voters turn away from Mr. Poilievre, Surveys show.

“Honestly, I think he’s a bully,” said Mohammad Jubaer, 47, a resident of Mr. Poilievre. “Trying to scare people to vote. I think it’s not the right approach. Maybe it’s an approach that works in the US, but not for Canadians.”

Mr. Poilievre’s campaign spokesman did not respond to the request for comment on this article.

A career politician, Mr. Poilievre, still describes himself as an outsider for his origin. Born in Calgary 16-year-old single mother, he was adopted by two school teachers and adults in a middle-class home in city suburbs. He was married to anaid Poilievre, Venezuelan immigrants who grew up in Montreal and worked in parliament. Poilievres has two young children.

Mr. Poilievre became interested in politics as a teenager, joining the Reform Party, a right -wing populist party that embodied the alienation of Western Canada from the traditional centers of power in the country, Ontario and Quebec. He studied at the University of Calgary, where a cluster of political scientists who support the movement became known as the “Calgary School”.

Tom Flenagan, a member of the Calgary School who continued to serve under Mr. Harper, said that Mr Poilievre and other future political leaders were influenced by the University climate in the late 1990s.

“There was a ferment among students because of the reform party,” Mr. Flenagan said. The reform party connected with progressive conservatives to form a current conservative party in 2003.

Mr. Poilievre left Calgary before graduating from work for MP Ottawa in 2002. After surprising elections at the age of 24, Mr. Poilievre quickly grew under Mr. Harper, who was the Prime Minister between 2006 and 2015.

In Canadian political culture, it is almost impossible for the individual MP to propose significant laws and establish a personal legislative record.

Thus, Mr. Poilievre managed to highlight himself by being skilled in Pugilist in the political theater and social media, said Alex Marland, a political scientist at Acadia University. Mr. Poilievre also showed a deep understanding of the budget and other issues of politics, attracting a sharp contrast to other populists such as Mr. Trump and Boris Johnson, said Mr. Markland.

“One difference,” Mr. Marsno said, “is that Poilievre would probably stay until late into the night reading everything.”

For two decades, Mr. Poilievre in Ottawa overlapped with what Mr. Powers described as a “professionalization” of the party’s policy: widespread use of political advisers, building databases to collect funds and use direct communication with voters, including through social media.

Mr. Poilievre is “the first professional politician to have the Kanada Conservative Party,” Mr. Powers said. “He spent years studying how to master his craft – he was wrong on the way. But he is truly a professional politician – for good or for the bad.”

Since becoming a conservative leader in 2022, Mr. Poilievre has advocated a traditional conservative message about lower taxes, smaller government and personal freedom, as well as to mitigate the oil industry and become strong in crime.

But it also turned sharper into populism than previous conservatives, said Mr. Flenagan.

Mr. Poilievre advocated the truckers who occupied Ottava for weeks to protest against the vaccine’s mandate during the pandemic. He directed against “Utopian Buddhism.” Mr. Poilievre attacked the main newspaper media, rather interviewed the right -wing media and the Podcaster.

“Polarizes the electorate,” said Peter Woolstencroft, a professor of emeritus at the University of Waterlou, who has been involved in conservative policy for decades. “He does not want to accumulate a great victory in the coalition.”

Mr. Jubaer, a voter living in Mr. Poilievre’s district, said he was tired of Mr. Trudeau. But he was planning to vote for Mr. Poilievre’s chief rival in the district, Bruce Fanjoy, a liberal candidate who said he knocked on 15,000 doors in his effort to reject Mr. Poilievre.

Recently afternoon, Mr Fanjoy left Brian Vallipuram’s house, 64, the owner of a restaurant who said he had voted in the previous election for Mr. Poilievre. But now that the main issue of the choice was Mr. Trump, Mr. Vallipuram was leaning toward Mr. Carney, who served as the head of the bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

“Carney knows the job,” Mr. Vallipuram said. “But Poilievre is a career politician.”

Since the Canadian political landscape has so dramatically moved, Mr. Poilievre has three weeks to find his balance, the challenge even for someone with his political skills and decades in the center of Canadian politics.

“Everything he has ever done or will prepare it properly for this moment or not,” said Mr. Bossenkool, a conservative who worked for Mr. Harper. “I wouldn’t bet against him, but I wouldn’t bet on my house.”