VANCOUVER—The New Democratic Party is registering record support from Quebecers while maintaining a comfortable lead across the country, a pair of new public opinion polls show.

A CROP poll of Quebec voters, done exclusively for La Presse, suggests that, with 47 per cent support in the province, Thomas Mulcair’s party could exceed its surprising 2011 election haul of 103 seats, 59 of which were in Quebec.

Nationally, the NDP are still front-runners, but the federal election race appears to be growing tighter as opposition parties compete for frustrated voters clamouring for change, according to new data from Forum Research.

The poll of 1,473 respondents, done exclusively for the Star, gives the NDP 34 per cent support and commanding leads in Quebec, British Columbia and Atlantic Canada. But Liberal numbers have also improved since the election was called three weeks ago.

With 28 per cent of respondents saying they would back Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, there is a virtual tie with Stephen Harper’s Conservative party, which has 29 per cent support that is strongest in the Prairie provinces.

“There’s a huge desire (for change),” said pollster Lorne Bozinoff. “Seventy-one per cent want (the Tories) out. That’s a lot of people. Is that 71 per cent going to split themselves four ways and let the Tories back in, or is there going to be some reckoning?”

Nowhere are the dynamics of the marathon federal election campaign more pronounced than in Ontario where the major parties are in a three-way dogfight for the province’s 121 seats of the total 338 seats in the House of Commons. The survey indicates that Trudeau’s Liberals have increased their support in the province since the campaign was launched on Aug. 2.

“Polls will go up and down between now and the election. What we know is this: that we’ve got two months of hard work ahead of us before the election,” Mulcair said at a campaign stop in Vancouver.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, whose party once dominated federal politics in Quebec but lost most of its support to the NDP in the 2011 campaign, said there are still two months left for party fortunes to shift ahead of the Oct. 19 vote.

“The last time we had the wind at our backs at the start of the campaign and the wind in our face at the end. This time we’re working very hard so that it’s the opposite,” Duceppe told reporters in Montreal.

But Mulcair said he is confident he can convince voters his party is best suited to replace Harper’s Conservatives.

“The NDP is working very hard federally to connect with people across the country. We hear across the country . . . that people want change,” he said.

The Forum survey was conducted between Monday and Wednesday and is considered accurate to within three percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Bozinoff said he expects more significant shifts in election polls as the summer draws to a close. That’s when parties will start presenting serious policies to a more focused electorate and party leaders will start slinging serious barbs at their opponents.

“The NDP have to worry about what comes next because it’s not like the other two parties are going to forget about them,” he said. “They are going to turn their attention to them shortly, but probably not before Labour Day.”

Correction – August 21, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the number of seats in the House of Commons.

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