B.C.-based polling expert says Democrats at fault for Trump’s win.

As U.S. election results rolled in late Tuesday night, many Democrats may have found themselves wondering, “What went wrong?”

An expert from the Angus Reid Institute in Vancouver says Democrats are at fault for Donald Trump’s presidential win, citing lack of communication on key issues and lack of voter turnout as main factors.

The president of the Angus Reid Institute, Shachi Kurl, says Trump’s win was due to Kamala Harris’ struggle to convince voters that the United States’ economic standing is better than it was in 2020.

“This was clearly a rejection of the Democrats in the face of a very basic political question that was first developed and perfected by Ronald Reagan some 40 years ago, but has often been the ballot question in elections around the world, ‘are you better off, or are you worse off than you were four years ago?'” Kurl said.

Although there are macroeconomic indicators that the country’s economy is doing better, Kurl explains Americans weren’t seeing the growth.

“When people do not feel like they’re doing better, they take that as, ‘overall the economy is not doing better,’ and it has a significant driving impact on how people vote,” she said.

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No ‘crystal ball’ to predict election outcomes: Kurl

Kurl says although polling is a science, there’s no exact way to predict how the polling will go.

“It’s not crystal ball fortune telling, and we knew it was going to be tight. Even as recently as yesterday afternoon, people asked me what was going to happen. And my response is, ‘It was too close to call.’”

She says there are many unpredictable variables like how swing states will break, or the resounding turnout of Latino men voting for Trump. She said the variables can lead to a lack of pre-polling information, making predictions tricky to call.

“There are always evolving challenges in terms of respondent contact, and when you’re dealing with demographics that are lower-education, who may have been told by their candidate that you can’t trust polls, [or] who may not have English as their first language; those are always things that you’re you’re trying to deal with and correct for,” said Kurl.

In Canada, she says it’s still unclear if the federal parties will come together despite their differences, in order to properly work with the U.S.

Canada needs to diversify its trade portfolio beyond the U.S. says former B.C. premier

Former B.C. premier, Christy Clark, was in office during Trump’s first presidency and says Canadians should know what to expect out of his administration this time around.

“President Trump has been very clear that he wants tariffs around the world. There’s no country on which that’s going to have a bigger impact than us because we are their biggest trading partner and certainly they are ours by a long shot,” she said.

Clark says Canada will need to “really thread the needle” on the free trade agreement, as it comes up for review. “That’s gonna be a tough job ahead. But, they’re our oldest and biggest trading partner. They’re our oldest friend. They need us — we don’t just need them. So I, I believe we can do it.”

Every time a review comes up for the free trade agreement, it poses a risk for Canada, explained Clark.

“Donald Trump got elected because he wanted to get focused on economic issues. That’s what he talked about to people, and ultimately, that’s why he prevailed in the election. In Canada, we need to be talking a little more about the economy too. we need to be talking about growth in our country,” said Clark.

Clark says Canada needs to grow its economy beyond the United States and diversify the country’s exports out to Asia and Europe, “I think we need a renewed focus on economic growth here at home as part of our effort to protect ourselves from being really vulnerable to any change on the US side.”

Clark is hopeful Trump won’t want to raise tariffs too high, as it would be “terrible for the American economy.”

“So, a t-shirt that used to cost you five dollars at Target will start costing you 15 dollars. He’s not going to want to do that. I’m hopeful that position will moderate once he’s in government again,” she said.

She says politicians tend to exaggerate sometimes and she’s hoping that’s what Trump has been doing when speaking about tariffs.

“Our economy, their economy deeply intertwined more than any other two economies in the world. And boy, you know, if he keeps all of those promises, it’s gonna make things a lot more expensive for American consumers and I don’t think he’ll wanna do that, and I think he’ll realize that.”