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OTTAWA — As the federal Conservative Party’s leadership race draws to a close, the campaign seems to have entered its silly season.

Candidates and their supporters — some of whom have now been campaigning for more than a year — are taking their final swipes at each other even as completed ballots have begun to roll in to party headquarters.

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While libertarian Quebec MP Maxime Bernier appears to be the frontrunner after Kevin O’Leary dropped out of the race late last month to endorse him, the campaigns of big-tent candidates such as Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole also claim to see paths to victory.

Final results will be announced on May 27 at a convention in Toronto. Until then, expect more moments like these in the last days of the leadership marathon:

The O’Toole campaign: literally on fire?

Erin O’Toole’s team is crying foul over a “dark moment” Thursday, with spokeswoman Melanie Paradis saying in an email to party members she was “shocked, outraged, and deeply disappointed.”