Canadians Dismiss U.S. Annexation as Unlikely to Happen
A new Ipsos poll finds that Canadian attitudes toward U.S. annexation have solidified against the idea of becoming the 51st state, with support dropping sharply as Canadians increasingly view the proposal as rhetoric. While core opposition remains virtually unchanged at 79%, the data suggests Canadians no longer take Trump's "51st state" rhetoric as a genuine offer, with those viewing it as a serious threat to sovereignty dropping by 17 points (from 48% to 31%) relative to January.
Hypothetical incentives have lost their appeal as support for joining the U.S. with full citizenship and currency conversion plummeted 14 points to just 16%. The president’s musings appear to have lost credibility as a real policy proposal, with fewer Canadians saying it strengthens their national pride (down six points to 72%). Overall, Canadians have moved from initial consideration to dismissive opposition and are more likely now to see the proposal as political theater rather than as a genuine offer.
Between January and September, Canadian opposition to joining the United States solidified, with 93% of Boomers saying they would "never vote" for integration (up from 87%), while Gen Z opposition softened slightly from 80% to 74%. Most significantly, support for accepting U.S. citizenship and currency conversion in exchange for joining the U.S. collapsed dramatically, with Gen Z support plummeting from 48% to just 24%, while Boomer support fell to a mere 6%. This sharp decline suggests younger Canadians in particular no longer believe such incentives would actually be offered or that the opportunity to join the U.S. will materialize. Concerns that Trump's "51st state" comments posed a serious threat to Canadian independence dropped sharply across all generations, with Gen Z falling from 70% to 38% and Boomers from 34% to 26%, indicating that Canadians increasingly view the entire proposition as unlikely to become reality.
The sharp decline in those viewing Trump's comments as a serious threat, combined with the collapse in support even with hypothetical incentives, indicates Canadians have concluded the annexation offer lacks substance and won't materialize into actual policy. The data suggest Canadians view the prospect as unrealistic: no longer believing the threat is real, and more decisively unified in rejecting any talk of a merger with the United States.
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between September 9 and 12, 2025 as part of our Trump, Tariffs, and Turmoil syndicated study. For this survey, a sample of n=2,001 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online, via the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources, and respondents earn a nominal incentive for their participation. Quotas and weighting were employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos polls which include non-probability sampling is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error. Ipsos abides by the disclosure standards established by the CRIC, found here: https://canadianresearchinsightscouncil.ca/standards/
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Darrell Bricker, PhD
CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2001
[email protected]
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