As you can see in the chart above, Canada's historically centrist Liberal Party has jumped out to a substantial edge over the governing Conservatives, leading them, on average, by a 37 to 31 margin in the polls ahead of tonight's election. It's been a remarkable surge: Just a few weeks ago, the parties were tied, and over much of the summer, the Liberals were actually in third place as the left-wing New Democratic Party led the pack.
But recently, the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, have seen their fortunes rise in dramatic fashion as support for the NDP has collapsed—very possibly due to voters strategically opting for the party best-positioned to oust Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who's been in power for nearly a decade.
Still, assuming the polls are right, we don't know if the Liberals will win enough seats in Canada's 338-member Parliament for an outright majority, or if they'd have to form some sort of governing coalition with the NDP. David Beard outlined several possible scenarios in his must-read backgrounder on the elections.
In their final projections, the CBC predicts the Liberals will win between 124 and 161 seats, with 146 the likeliest end result; the Globe and Mail offers a similar guesstimate. But the margin of error in both forecasts is considerable: In the CBC's best-case scenario, the Liberals could come away with 185, but in a nightmare, they'd net just 74. This is a good reminder that polling three-way races can be very tricky, and that it's also hard to project results for individual seats based on national polling.
It's also very possible that these polls are understating the Liberals' momentum and simply cannot capture the last-minute movement in the party's favor. But unless we're witnessing another epic polling failure, Harper's Conservatives are in for a bad night tonight no matter what.
And please join us when polls close at 7 PM ET for our liveblog at Daily Kos Elections.