We’re in the limbo stage of the pre-campaign; the candidates are campaigning, but the voting public is firmly in summertime mode and isn’t paying close attention to anything beyond the end of the cottage dock. The outcome of the election is still as clear as mud — but we are getting a much sharper picture of the factors that will be influencing that outcome.

This promises to be one of the highest-stakes elections in a long time, and also a pollster’s nightmare — rooted in an array of unique advantages and weaknesses confronting the three main contenders for power.

At 33 points, the NDP maintains a modest but stable lead. At 29 points, the Conservatives are hanging in — although they are still down 10 points from their 2011 election result. Nevertheless, we see evidence of a Conservative recovery based largely on issues related to security and culture; more on this later.

The Liberals are nine points back from the lead, but are still very much in contention. The Green Party is stuck at around seven points and has fallen out of a lot of races in British Columbia. Their decline is inversely proportional to the rise of the NDP — the party with which the Greens compete most directly — in B.C.

The NDP is doing well in Quebec and would dominate the federal scene in the province completely were it not for the return of Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe (who is at 23 points in Quebec). The NDP and Bloc Québécois have 60 per cent of the Quebec vote between them and the outcome of that race very much depends on how the Bloc fares in the future.

Ontario is once again a tight three-way race, but the NDP has fallen back somewhat and there is now only a six-point spread separating the three major parties. This is a real vote-splitting disaster percolating for both the NDP and the Liberals.

Directional measures on the country, driven largely by the moribund economy, remain very poor; they’re approaching historical nadirs, which intensifies the pressure on the Conservatives.

There are two main factors explaining why the Conservatives are having serious trouble getting over 30 points, the minimum floor to be in serious contention to form a stable government. The first is economic stagnation — but it’s important to remember that Canadians’ definition of the economy transcends mere interest rates and unemployment rates.

Canadians are more focused on questions about how to deal with an economy which no longer produces good jobs, benefits and economic security, and which seems increasingly to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few. Wednesday’s confirmation from the Bank of Canada that the country may indeed be in a recession certainly bodes badly for the Conservative party’s fortunes.

Which leads us to the second factor: regime fatigue. The Conservatives have been in power for nearly ten years and during this time, Canadians have not felt a significant improvement in their standing of living. Instead, they see the economy as being in recession; the vast majority of Canadians describe their personal financial fortunes as stagnant or even worse off than they were when Stephen Harper achieved his majority government.

Another issue that has been gaining some traction lately is that of security. As we entered the summer, the terrorism file seemed to be dropping off the radar altogether. However, it appears that the Conservatives have at least temporarily resuscitated these issues — thanks in part, no doubt, to their controversial ads using footage culled from the Islamic State’s own gruesome recruitment videos. Sixteen per cent of Canadians now rate this as the most important election issue, up from eleven per cent last month.

This week, we updated our tracking on the attention Canadians are paying to pre-election announcements and advertising from each of the three main parties. The percentage of Canadians who say they have been paying attention to paid advertising by the Conservative party has jumped six points in the last two weeks — not surprising, given the controversy surrounding the use of Islamic State videos in their ads. While many voters recoiled at the horrific and exploitative nature of the ads, the party has succeeded in connecting with its constituency of older and less educated Canadians. This supports the hypothesis that terror was a significant force elevating Conservative fortunes slightly and that it is one of the few remaining cards the party has to play.

The degree of attention voters have been paying to speeches and announcements by Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, has flatlined — which suggests that the Liberal party’s problems are connected to their inability to penetrate the pre-campaign noise and establish themselves as the progressive alternative. We saw evidence that the Liberals’ successive high-profile policy launches over the past six weeks moved the dials upward on the question of which party has the “best plans” for the country — but as attention dropped, support dropped as well.

Our tracking on voters’ emotional engagement shows that their emotional response to Mr. Harper is largely very negative — with clear growth in the number of voters who feel “angry” about him. Both Thomas Mulcair and Trudeau, meanwhile, have much more positive associations in the public’s mind. Normally, that would be good news for the two progressive parties.

However, our findings suggest that Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Trudeau are seen largely in similar terms — which raises the possibility that voters see the two men as almost interchangeable. These results underline the similarities among the constituencies the two parties are trying to attract — in effect, they’re fishing from the same pool.

Overall, it appears that no party is in a position to form a stable government. All things considered, the NDP is in the best shape and it has held the lead for six straight weeks. Its leader scores well across the board and it has ample room for growth in terms of voters’ second choices. For those who say NDP fortunes are just a temporary honeymoon holdover from the election of Premier Rachel Notley in Alberta, we would point out that that the rise started back in February, long before the Alberta election. Rather, the NDP’s success is due more to its dominance in Quebec, its popularity with the labour movement and its success in unifying the educated and progressive votes.

Right now, the threats to the NDP are two-fold. First, the “promiscuous progressive” voters who have turned their way could return to the Liberals; this swing group has been moving back and forth for over four years. Second, the added scrutiny that comes with frontrunner status heightens the challenge; one has to assume that the Conservative attack machine will soon turn its focus from Mr. Trudeau to Mr. Mulcair.

The Conservative party faces the most treacherous path to victory. Their meagre second-choice standing leaves them with scant opportunities for growth. Directional and economic indicators are lousy and Mr. Harper has by far the poorest approval ratings. And for Prime Minister Harper, simply ‘winning’ would not be enough; he needs another majority or, at the very least, a strong minority for his government to have any kind of shelf life — especially now that Canadians are warming to the idea of a progressive-led coalition government. Still, we see the party hanging on, not that far back from where they were in the lead-up to the 2011 election. Indeed, it appears their ads have given them a significant uptick and, in the absence of an economic case, the party is going to have to look to security and cultural issues to restore its fortunes, as this appears to be the only place were they can grow their support.

The Liberals are still very much in the race and have some significant cards yet to play. They have a largely popular leader who produces a sense of hope. Their key problem is that some voters see both the leader and the party as largely interchangeable with the NDP. While it must be discouraging for the party to see how quickly the gains from their high-profile platform launches has dissipated, the key to victory lies in proving to Canadians that they — and not the NDP — are the clear alternative to Steven Harper.

At this stage, there is no clear winner. The public’s answer to the election riddle might not be a single party, but a consortium — formal or informal — and voters seem relatively indifferent as to who should be in charge.

Methodological note on the treatment of “other”

Over the past few years, we have noticed a steady increase in the proportion of respondents selecting “other” on the question of federal vote intention. In our last poll, for instance, 3.3 per cent said they intend to vote for a party other than the Conservatives, NDP, Liberals, Greens or Bloc. One possibility is that the unusually high incidence of “other” is due to the formation of the Strength in Democracy party last year, but this theory quickly falls apart when one considers that “other” was at just 1.6 points in Quebec, less than half the national average.

Some who have noticed this trend have suggested that these results reflect a rise in the popularity of “fringe” parties. However, we have noticed that in almost all of our election polling, we have consistently overestimated support for “other”. For example, in the 2014 Ontario election, we overstated “other” support by a margin of 3.9 to 1.5. In the 2011 federal election, it was 1.5 to 0.9.

We believe that the high incidence of “other” is a reflection of the growing dissatisfaction that Canadians feel with all of the mainstream choices and the rise of “other” reflects voters who are simply trying to say “none of the above”. One final possibility is that some Canadians are selecting “other” to express a preference for a government by two or more parties, although we have experimented with various question wordings and clarifying the response categories has had no discernable impact.

Whatever the cause, we know from past experience that “other” is being exaggerated by a factor of between two and four. Therefore, from now on, we will be adjusting “other” downward by one-half (and re-allocating the difference among the other parties). While this adjustment may be imperfect, we believe that it will create a more accurate picture of Canada’s political landscape.

Frank Graves is founder and president of EKOS Polling.

Methodology:

This study was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The field dates for this survey are July 8-14, 2015. In total, a random sample of 2,538 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.