With help from a surprising surge in Quebec, the Conservatives have taken a three- point lead over the Liberals nationally and are again flirting with a majority, according to a new poll from EKOS Research.

Conducted from January 28 to February 3, the poll — which reached 2,974 Canadian adults and has a margin of error 1.8 percent, 19 times out of 20 — found 35 per cent support for the Conservative party.

The Liberals were in second, with 32.2 per cent, while the NDP were in third with 17.9. The Green Party and the Bloc garnered 8.0 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively.

Using those results, the poll analyst Paul Barber projects 152 seats for the Conservatives; 127 for the Liberals; 55 for the NDP; 2 for the Bloc; and 2 for the Greens — including a second seat on Vancouver Island.

That’s 18 shy of a Conservative majority if the next federal election, scheduled for Oct. 19, were held today.

“All in all, the Conservatives have gone from being poised to slip from majority to third party, to now looking at the real prospect of securing a fourth mandate, possibly even a majority, which seemed a risibly improbable outcome last September,” EKOS President Frank Graves wrote in his analysis of the results.

“The Conservatives have erased a 12-point Liberal lead and now enjoy a modest but stable and apparently growing lead of three points. The 35-point level is their best poll since 2011 and it is higher than where we had them in the final stages of the 2011 election campaign, which resulted in a majority victory.”

Particularly surprising, however, is the Conservatives’ growing popularity in Quebec.

It’s now essentially a three-way tie in the crucial province.

With a margin of error of 4.9 per cent, the Liberals are on top at 26.7 per cent, but the Conservatives — at 25.7 — are nipping at their heels, and the NDP are right behind them at 23.1.

The Bloc are sitting at 16.1 per cent.

“The party has improved its standing bit by bit over the past few months and, while none of the individual movements are significant in and of themselves, the overall trend is a clear, upward line,” Graves notes of the Tory upswing in the province.

“Whereas the Conservatives had dipped to ten points as recently as September, they now stand at 26 points, and they are particularly strong in the former Bloc stronghold of Quebec City.”

Those numbers translate to 20 Conservative seats in Quebec, according to Barber.

Though still trailing Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, the prime minister has also seen a recent boost in his approval ratings: 40 per cent of Canadians approve of his performance; 46 per cent approve of Trudeau’s; and 50 per cent of Mulcair’s.

“The net outcome of the past four months is nothing less than a dramatic transformation of the political landscape,” Graves says. “It has also seen Mr. Harper experiencing a similarly profound repositioning of his personal brand with voters. His approval ratings are now in nearly the same territory as those for the opposition leaders.”

So what’s behind that profound repositioning?

“As for the driver of this big shift in the political landscape, look no further than the role of security and ‘terror’ issues as the trigger,” Graves writes.

A majority of Canadians support the ISIS mission, the EKOS results show. And security has taken hold as an issue since the attacks in St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa in October.

That said, Canadians are pretty evenly divided when it comes to sacrificing their personal privacy for additional security, possibly making the new terrorism legislation a political risk.