Article content

Kevin O’Leary professes himself a “Conservative expansionist,” with a target of growing the party by 40 per cent under his leadership, mainly by appealing to 18-35 year old voters disillusioned by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

At first glance, it would seem that he is succeeding — in most polls he has the most support among existing Conservatives, and even rivals admit he is signing up new members at a faster rate than their campaigns.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or John Ivison: The Conservative leadership really is Kevin O'Leary versus Anyone But Kevin O'Leary Back to video

“The biggest eye-opener so far was when we made a decision last week to go to a pub at (the University of British Columbia) at 11 p.m., just to see if anybody would talk to me,”O’Leary said in an interview at an Ottawa restaurant, ahead of Friday’s program at the Manning Conference. “We thought maybe 15 or so would, and we’d do some social media. Three hundred and fifty turned up — we had to close the doors with another 150 waiting outside.

“They feel Trudeau has screwed them and they’re pissed,” he said. “They’re ripe for this party …. It’s a new ball game — if you can’t get to that youth, you can’t get a majority mandate.”