LILLEY: What Harper’s endorsement means for CPC leadership race

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The answer is both yes and no.

Despite Harper saying that he offered up his endorsement because people were wondering, I don’t believe that. It’s pretty well known that Harper was quietly backing Poilievre and not just over his dislike of Jean Charest.

Back in June I was told to keep an eye out for something to happen at Stampede. “Harper will put his arm around Pierre,” my source told me. There was talk that Harper would appear in public with Poilievre to show the fullness of his support.

A little more than a week before Stampede, I was told that there wouldn’t end up being anything in public after all and that Harper would remain silent. In the end, Harper couldn’t resist speaking up despite his past statements about staying out of the internal politics of the party he helped found nearly 20 years ago.

“He’s antsy about where the country is going under Trudeau,” said one confidant on why Harper spoke out.

Harper didn’t speak out during the 2017 or 2020 leadership races and generally refrains from commenting on Canadian politics at all. He’s said that he doesn’t watch Canadian news, but I heard that claim while he was still in office and more than once he quoted my work back to me.

Despite mostly staying out of the public eye, Harper has been following this race carefully, even speaking to Poilievre from time to time.

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Will this endorsement move many votes or is it just symbolic?

Poilievre has signed up more members than any other candidate past or present, many of them younger Canadians who wouldn’t really remember Harper’s time in office and many who were never interested in politics before Pierre came along. He speaks to these voters in ways and using channels that Harper never could.

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The endorsement is unlikely to have much impact on those voters. Where it could help Poilievre is with the 126,000 or so people who were members of the Conservative Party when the race started, the party establishment if you will. Having Harper signal his support will carry a lot of weight with this group and might win over people who were sitting on the fence or considering voting for Charest because they didn’t like Poilievre’s abrasive style.

The Charest campaign is trying to spin this the best way they can, calling the late in the game endorsement from Harper a sign that Charest has momentum that must be stopped.

“If I had to bet, the PP campaign met this morning and realized they are in a position of desperation to change the channel. So, they called in their last favour. They used their last card,” Charest national campaign director Chris Rougier wrote in an email to backers Monday night.

Charest issued an official statement saying that Conservatives need to unite behind him to win.

“We have a choice: lose more seats or build on our momentum across Canada to win a majority government,” Charest said.

It’s a brave front but Harper’s public endorsement going to Poilievre isn’t good news for Charest, just as Patrick Brown being kicked out of the race hurt him earlier this month. Charest’s path to victory was always, in his own words, a narrow one and now it appears narrower.

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Poilievre’s campaign wants a solid first-ballot victory to show they have strong support across the party and because going to extra ballots is dangerous — just ask Maxime Bernier and Peter MacKay. It’s hard to see how Harper’s endorsement doesn’t help Poilievre reach that goal.

Ballots are still being cast, the counting is far from over, but the race looks like it is.