Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are on the rise in B.C., according to two polls released Wednesday.

In late August the polling firm Insights West, in a poll of more than 800 British Columbians, indicated Tory popularity had fallen by more than half from the 2011 election, when the party got 45 per cent of the vote.

That poll had the NDP at a commanding 41 per cent, compared to 24 per cent for the Liberals, 22 per cent for the Conservatives, and 12 per cent for the Green party.

But that poll was quickly contradicted by some national polls which, using smaller and therefore less reliable sample sizes for B.C., suggested that the race to win most of B.C.’s 42 seats is much tighter.

And Wednesday’s new Insights West online survey of 1,003 British Columbians, conducted Sept. 18-21, confirms that there is a tight three-way race in the province.

The NDP still leads at 34 per cent, while the Conservatives are second at 28 per cent, the Liberals third with 26 per cent, while the Greens are at 11.

But the NDP’s lead may be more precarious than the numbers indicate, since that party is particularly popular with young British Columbians, while the Conservatives are the top choice for residents over age 55.

Studies have shown that older Canadians are far more likely to vote than youth.

“The Conservatives have definitely improved their standing in British Columbia and their voters remain extremely committed,” Insights West pollster Mario Canseco said in a news release.

As for approval ratings, the NDP’s Tom Mulcair is in the lead at 60 per cent, up five points from August, while Elizabeth May is at 53 per cent, Justin Trudeau is at 51 per cent, and Harper 32 per cent.

Insights West says a poll of this size has an error margin of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. However, many pollsters refuse to publish error margins for online polls, since the respondents – while weighted to reflect B.C.’s demography – aren’t chosen randomly.

Meanwhile, an organization encouraging Canadians to vote strategically to oust Harper on Oct. 19 has released polling data for 31 targeted ridings, including six in B.C.

The polling data supports other national polls suggesting the Conservatives are edging upwards in popular support, though are still at risk of losing a number of key ridings that voted Tory in 2011.

In 11 ridings that were also polled in August, the Conservatives are up by several percentage points in nine and down by only a single point – or much less than the margin of error – in just two, one of which was Vancouver Granville.

Leadnow raised money to hire the Environics polling firm to use interactive voice response technology (that is, a recorded voice asking the respondent to push buttons) involving an average of 605 voting-age Canadians in each of the ridings Sept 18-21.

That kind of sampling results in a margin of error of around four percentage points, 19 times out of 20, according to Environics.