Canada's Liberals, Carney win national election

What happened

Canada's Liberal Party won the most seats in Monday's national election, securing Prime Minister Mark Carney a full term in office, according to preliminary results Tuesday morning. The rare fourth consecutive election victory sealed a remarkable comeback for the Liberals, who trailed the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, by more than 20 percentage points as recently as January.

Who said what

Carney, 60, became prime minister last month after Justin Trudeau stepped down amid sagging poll numbers. The combination of Trudeau's exit and President Donald Trump's "annexation threats and trade war" fueled the Liberals' "stunning turnaround in fortunes," The Associated Press said. "To say it's unprecedented is not only an understatement," Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams told The Washington Post, "it underplays the magnitude of the shift."

Trump "is trying to break us so that America can own us," Carney said in his victory speech. Canada's "old relationship with the United States" is "over," but "we are over the shock of the American betrayal" and "have many, many other options than the United States to build prosperity for all Canadians." A central banker new to politics, Carney easily won his first-ever seat in Parliament Monday.

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Poilievre — who lost his own seat to a Liberal rival, the CBC/Radio-Canada projected Tuesday morning — conceded Monday night that the Conservatives "didn't quite get over the finish line yet" but focused on its gain of "well over 20 seats." In a "different election," the Conservatives would have been "successful" with their vote share, the BBC said, but the Liberals benefited as voters ditched smaller parties, "especially the left-wing New Democrats." Jagmeet Singh stepped down as NDP leader after losing his seat.

What next?

As of Tuesday morning, it wasn't clear whether the Liberals won a majority, or at least 172 seats — they were on track for at least 168, versus 144 for the Conservatives. "This is a dramatic comeback, but if the Liberals cannot win a majority," the "political uncertainty" could "complicate things for them," said McGill University political science professor Daniel Béland to the AP.