As we enter the third and mercifully final month of the election, examining all of the opinion polls released so far over the campaign reveal two main stories of public support over this long period: the revival of the Conservative vote in the last few weeks, and the trading of places between the Liberals and New Democrats in the battle for Canadians' votes.
The campaign began with a two-way race for first between the Conservatives and New Democrats. Every poll in July had one of these two parties leading, with four different national polls even suggesting a tie. This had been the case since the early May election in Alberta, when the NDP replaced the Liberals as the main contender to the government for the national poll lead.
This pattern continued through late August when the NDP took first place, posting an impressive 11 poll leads in a row. This surge happened largely as a result of the NDP's gains in Quebec. Polling averages had the party at around 36 per cent at the start of the campaign, which would have led to seat losses for them compared to 2011.
By Labour Day, the New Democrats had re-ascended to polling in the mid-40s, their best-ever performance in the province that had rewarded the party with more than half of their caucus in the last vote. These gains were coupled with the Conservatives losing support in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. However, the New Democrats' lead was hampered by the fact that during this time they were unable to realize polling gains anywhere outside Quebec, running even or even losing support elsewhere compared to the campaign's early period.
At the same time, the Liberals were slowly picking up a few percentage points of support throughout the country, and continued this rise through Labour Day, the time in the campaign when political science research suggests voters would normally start paying attention.
This phase of the campaign was also the most unusual in a historical sense: a genuine three-way race. A third-place party has never won more than 22 per cent of the vote, and for a two-week period, national opinion polls were regularly showing a 2 percentage point spread between first and third. Only a small handful of provincial elections have ever been that close.The last few weeks have presented poll watchers yet another shift, with this three-way traffic breaking into yet another two-way race, this time between the Liberals and Conservatives, with the Tories seemingly a handful of percentage points ahead. In dramatic contrast to their earlier 11 poll streak, the New Democrats have now not led a poll with an end date later than September 18.
Much as their rise in late August was predicated on an increase in support in Quebec, their decline in the last few weeks has largely been the result of negative movement in the same province, with the party reversing most of their gains made at the beginning of the campaign. Most of the shift has gone to the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois. This again makes the NDP's currently huge cache of seats in the province seem difficult to repeat in two-and-a-half weeks.
If the New Democrats are able to even stay where they are now, it will be their second best national result ever. That would surely feel like a loss compared to their dreams of government. However, this story of the campaign puts extra importance on today's French language debate for the party. If they are able to regain the support in Quebec that they had just three weeks ago, they will yet again be able to re-establish their presence in a three-way race.
It also gives new hope to the Conservatives who, after a few weeks of anemic poll numbers, seem suddenly revitalized, trending upwards in Quebec, and making small but important gains in Ontario and the West. The Liberals, too, must surely be satisfied by the fact that the campaign as a whole has improved their position.
For all three parties, however, a similar fate awaits: in no pair of consecutive polls has a majority seemed within reach for any of them.
Paul Fairie is a political scientist in Calgary who designed The Globe's Election Forecast.