Three years ago, Jessica Katzman was dating a Conservative voter. Now, she feels it would be more difficult to do so.
“Everything feels more divided now, even compared to a few years ago,” said the 26-year-old Toronto content creator. “It feels like everyone decided they are either ‘this’ or ‘that’ and are less inclined to acknowledge that nothing is black or white.”
That said, she can’t see herself dating a Conservative in today’s political climate. “For me, caring about other people is such an enormous feature of who I am and what I believe. I can’t date a man who doesn’t care about immigrants’ or women’s rights,” she said. “Empathy is a huge part of what I look for in a partner.”
Jacinda,* a 21-year-old University of Ottawa student from Calgary, feels similarly. “I would not date anybody who votes Conservative. That’s a huge turn-off for me,” she said. “Political views are someone’s values. As individuals, there would be a contrast in how we go about our lives.”
Canadian women are more likely than men to support liberal values such as social welfare, government intervention and wealth redistribution, according to a 2022 review of voting behaviour out of McGill University. And for women like Jessica and Jacinda, it’s only getting harder to find a man who shares those values.
Just before the Ontario provincial election in February, Abacus Data polling indicated 38 per cent of women planned to vote Conservative compared to 51 per cent of men. Thirty-one per cent of women and 28 per cent of men planned to vote Liberal. As for the NDP, 19 per cent of women planned to vote for the party versus 13 per cent of men. (The remainder planned to vote for other parties or not at all).
Five days before the Canadian federal election in April, 51 per cent of women planned to vote Liberal compared to 41 per cent of men, according to EKOS Politics polling. And just 26 per cent of women planned to vote Conservative compared to 46 per cent of men.
“We did very well with younger men,” Ben Woodfinden, Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre’s former communications director told the National Post in a May 2025 interview. He added that the Conservatives didn’t do as well with female voters, but this is a trend “happening independent of any specific leader or any specific party.”
“The parties of the right are increasingly male-dominated,” Woodfinden said, while “parties of the left are increasingly female-dominated.”
This is the case across the democratic world: Over the past 30 years, women in Western Europe and North America have been shifting more and more to the left, according to University of Manchester research. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the opposite was true: men tended to be more left-wing than women. Since then, thought to be because of women’s increased participation in the paid workforce and changing roles in the home, this gender gap has reversed.
Bruce,* a 36-year-old business owner from Toronto, felt this divide when he returned to the dating scene after a breakup in his late twenties. The women he met were much more left-leaning than he was, he recalls, and after discussing his political views with one of his first romantic interests, she broke it off, claiming their values were misaligned. In retrospect, he agrees.
Though he’s been a staunch Conservative since he was 18 years old, Bruce is still open to dating Liberals, depending on their views. “I’m always open to having conversations and seeing where people stand because I don’t want people to judge me and assume all my position points if I say I’m Conservative,” Bruce said. “I believe two people can have different politics, but they need the same values. Often, however, those are synonymous.”
Jason,* a 27-year-old fundraiser from Toronto, said he considers himself a fiscal conservative and social centrist. “Once political beliefs come out, you can be attacked and vilified without care for your perspective,” he said. “A couple of [romantic] interactions I had over text ended abruptly once I said I was Conservative. Some people can’t see past a title and don’t even care to delve into beliefs.”
After 27-year-old Ottawa marketing professional Sawyer* questioned a romantic interest’s Instagram story share of a left-leaning take, they never spoke again. “I think when I actually discuss things with someone, they usually do not think I’m unreasonable at all or even [necessarily] conservative,” he said. “But I’ve found in many cases, simply challenging a view can mean I’m quickly rejected.”
In much of North America, singles are becoming more likely to reject potential matches who do not share their political beliefs, according to the Survey Center on American Life. Daters can often tell one another’s political leanings from their dating app profiles, and dating app Bumble found women in particular are less likely to date someone with differing political views.
Dating podcast host and influencer Anna Kai said you should put your politics in your dating profile if that’s a non-negotiable for you. If it means you get fewer matches, that’s a good thing. “You’re trying to build something meaningful with someone whose idea of justice and decency rhymes with yours,” she said.
You don’t necessarily need to discuss politics on a first date, but it’s something you should pay attention to early on in a relationship. “At their core, politics are just values in action,” Kai said. “What keeps a couple strong isn’t party loyalty, but shared fundamental beliefs.”
The political gender divide does seem to be affecting how people perceive their own dating options, said Jess Carbino, relationship expert and former sociologist at Tinder and Bumble. “There is an increasing sense of disillusionment among young people that the dating pool is limited, and that they are less desirable in their dating market by virtue of their political views,” she said.
She advises daters to think hard about what values they’re looking for in a partner, and “whether or not political affiliation, for them, encapsulates those values.”
Relationship therapist Sofie Roos said she hears from clients several times a month that political misalignment was a reason for tension or even breakups. “During the last five years, this has become more common,” Roos said, adding that this tends to happen when the honeymoon phase ends and the relationship starts to get serious. “As soon as you move in together and questions about who does what at home, who pays for what, what to spend money on, when and how to get married, and if and how to raise kids come to the table, your political differences become much clearer than they did when you were dating.”
Today, Roos said, people are more politically engaged and opinionated than they were 20 years ago, and that can be a sticking point: “Though subjects such as money and religion are still important, political beliefs are for many the most difficult difference to work through.”
*These sources requested that their full names not be used.
