Mark Carney Leads Engagement Race for Canadian Prime Minister

Canadians head to the ballot box on April 28 to vote for a new prime minister after sitting Justin Trudeau announced in January that he would step down and his successor, Mark Carney, triggered a general election.

In the time since, top contenders for the job have been jockeying for position in the news cycle, with one particular candidate leading by a wide margin when it comes to article engagement, according to data from Chartbeat.

• Articles related to current Canadian prime minister Mark Carney continue to generate much more engaged time than his main challenger, Pierre Poilievre. Engagement for all of the canddiates peaked the day after their debate on April 17, at more than 32K hours.
• For Carney, the biggest boost actually came very early in the election cycle, when he first won control of the Liberal Party is a landslide vote.
• Carney has benefited from a typical incumbent advantage, being in the daily news just by way of his impact on policy, but that built-in boost creates a greater volume of articles than it does engagement time per article.
• Also notable: Carney's lead was far greater at the start of March than it has been recently, which could indicate that article engagement around candidates (or Carney and his candidates together) could be closer to parity as election day draws nearer.

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