The Conservatives have a low ceiling of potential support, and a majority of Canadian voters are within reach for the NDP.

“The Conservatives’ room for growth is extremely narrow,” says Frank Graves of EKOS Research. “Very few people seem to be taking them seriously as a second choice.”

According to this week’s EKOS poll, the Tories are the first choice of 29.2 per cent of voters and the second choice of just 6.7 per cent — for a total of 35.9 per cent.

“The Conservatives have decided on a low-coverage, high-yield sort of strategy,” says Peter Loewen of the University of Toronto. “Rather than hoping to have some low probability of winning a large number of voters, they prefer a high probability of a lower number of voters. It may seem like a bad strategy, but they’ve played it to great effect for three elections in a row.”

And the NDP is the first or second choice of over half of voters; 31.3 per cent list the NDP as their first choice, and another 19.9 per cent as their second.

The floundering Liberals are the first choice of just 23.9 per cent, good for third place, but they have a higher potential ceiling than the Tories. 18.8 per cent list the Liberals as their second choice, putting their ceiling at 42.7 per cent.

But the Liberals and the NDP share a significant amount of each other’s secondary support. Forty per cent of NDP supporters list the Liberals as their second choice, while 45 per cent of Liberals would otherwise vote for the NDP.

“Harper’s best hope is that these two parties are more or less exactly tied and the Greens have a strong showing in the popular vote,” says Loewen. “This is his path to another majority. But … I imagine he is feeling that Mulcair is coming on too strong.”

Most Conservatives polled won’t offer a second choice. Graves chalks this up to “the loyalty expressed by voters in the Conservative base” and a steady polarization between Conservative supporters and the left.

“That ‘my way or the highway’ attitude is an asset when it comes to turnout, but it has its limits,” says Graves. “Even when converting every possible second choice, the Conservative Party is left short of its 2011 election result.”