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Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says she's within striking distance of knocking off a Conservative titan here in Central Nova, but even her own polling shows Peter MacKay still has a significant lead.

The Greens are eager to portray Ms. May as running a clear second in the hope of winning over the riding's significant number of New Democrat voters.

“New Democrats, search your hearts,” she said Sunday in an interview, repeating a line she delivered during the local candidates debates last week attended by hundreds of Nova Scotians intrigued by this high-profile local battle.

An Oracle poll of 300 people was conducted for the Green Party Oct. 8-9 and has a margin of error of five percentage points, 19 times out of 20. It pegged Conservative support at 36.7 per cent, Green support at 29.3 per cent and NDP support at 20.7.

The poll was taken after the first of three all-candidates debates that took place in the riding during the final week of the campaign.

The battle for second in the pre-election day polls is key, given that Mr. MacKay won just 41 per cent of the votes in this riding in 2006.

The Liberals have decided not to run a candidate against Ms. May, leaving 10,349 previously-Liberal votes up for grabs.

Ms. May is scheduled to spend her last day of the campaign Monday hosting a large Thanksgiving dinner at a local church.

As for the national Green campaign, Ms. May is relying on phone lines and satellite hook-ups to get her message out through the media. In response to criticism from within her own party, Ms. May acknowledged yesterday that her message is confusing.

She maintains that the top priority is for voters to turf Stephen Harper as Prime Minister and replace him with Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion. Yet she says in the vast majority of ridings, that still means people should vote Green. However, in close ridings, particularly in southern Ontario, she says Green voters worried about Mr. Harper may want to think about switching their vote.

“I've consistently said that principle is always above partisanship and that's why I'm still a partisan Green – of course I am, I'm the leader of the party – but I'm not prepared to tell people something that isn't true,” she said.

Ms. May has been accused of “selling out” the Green candidates and supporters in close ridings, but the Green Leader says those candidates understand Canada's first past the post-electoral system forces situations where voters sometimes must leave their first choice.

“Those are not places where we're going to win seats. I love our candidates. I think they're fantastic people,” said Ms. May. “Of course the situation created by first past the post and the Green Party's larger commitment to action on climate means there is a certain amount of confusion… I cannot lie to voters and say there is no issue [with voting Green] in these ridings. I trust the voters. That's what it comes down to.”

In addition to Central Nova, Ms. May said there about six other ridings where the Greens will have a chance of winning on election night. She named Guelph; Bruce Grey-Owen Sound; Vancouver Centre; West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast; Nanaimo-Port Alberni and Okanagan Shuswap.

Ms. May's refusal to speak in clear sound bites or blitz ridings where Greens may win is consistent with her early pledge to do politics differently.

She has largely eschewed press conferences announcing bits and pieces of Green Party policy. In fact, Ms. May is running on a policy platform she first released in the fall of 2007 focused largely on an idea called “The Green Tax Shift.” Mr. Dion's “Green Shift,” which he released in June 2008, bears a significant resemblance to the Green Party's proposal.

In the 2006 campaign, former Green Party Leader Jim Harris struggled for attention. But the Green campaign started with a bang in 2008, as stories about Ms. May's participation in the leaders' debates dominated the agenda.

The Green Leader was able to capitalize on an unusual sequence of events in which the consortium of broadcasters that set the debate rules said Ms. May could not participate because other party leaders threatened to boycott the event if she was there.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Jack Layton ultimately reversed their objections after a major outcry from the public.

Ms. May's political victory that week led to a bounce in Green support in the polls and the Greens have consistently hovered around 10 per cent support nationally since. That support is more than twice the 4.5 per cent the Greens received from voters in 2006.

In opting for a mid-campaign rail tour from Vancouver to Nova Scotia, Ms. May found a concrete way of illustrating her commitment to the environment and rail. The final election night results will show whether the week of whistle stops in small communities rarely visited by national leaders was time well-spent.

During the debates, Ms. May kept her focus on climate change and her performance received generally favourable marks according to pollsters.

The one – and perhaps only – issue that has caused her campaign a significant amount of grief has been Ms. May's comments about strategic voting.

While maintaining throughout that strategic voting “makes no sense” in most ridings, she has made several comments suggesting Green voters go elsewhere in close ridings to defeat Conservative candidates.

Ms. May has long been clear in stating that she wants Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion to replace Mr. Harper as Prime Minister. But voices from her own party say her comments have led to confusion about how Green supporters should vote in their own riding.

In a Sept. 25 article in the Toronto Star, Ms. May was quoted saying: “I won't say, ‘You've got to vote Green if you believe in our policies.' I'll say, ‘Here's our policies, figure out what you need to do because, frankly, the Green Party has to put progress [on climate change] and principle above short-term power.”

In the interview conducted during her cross-country train tour, she was also quoted saying: “I'd rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as Prime Minister, because his policies are too dangerous.”

Finally, she also speculated about how she would like to see Mr. Dion, NDP leader Jack Layton and the Green Party get together and co-operate electorally.

“We sit down and say, ‘Who has the best chance of winning in all these ridings?' What I've been calling for is proportional representation by other means… I will not be able to live with myself if anything I've done contributes to Harper winning, because the stakes are too high.”

The Toronto Star story triggered an immediate clarification from Ms. May, who issued a statement saying she was answering questions about hypothetical scenarios and does not support strategic voting.

But last week, Ms. May again made similar remarks in an interview with the Globe and Mail.

The Green Leader said strategic voting makes no sense in the vast majority of ridings, but then pointed out there are close ridings where web sites are available to help people choose the best candidate to beat the Conservatives.

That led former Green Party deputy leader David Chernushenko to accuse Ms. May of “selling out” the Green Party's candidates and volunteers.

Other Greens made similar comments, expressing concern that Ms. May's comments create confusion.

Ms. May responded to the controversy with a second press release on the issue, stating tersely that she does not support strategic voting.

On Sunday, two days before the election, Ms. May gave an interview to the Canadian Press. The journalist then fileda story reporting that Ms. May said “there's no question” that in 20 per cent of Canadian ridings, Green voters may wish to vote strategically.

Within hours, the Green Party was once again criticizing the media, describing the Canadian Press story as “misleading.”

The internal debate within the Greens – whether the priority should be electoral gain or advocating key issues – is similar to the one that has raged for decades among New Democrats.

With a Green Party convention scheduled in Central Nova shortly after the election, there will be a lot to discuss.