Squinting slightly in the glare of the summer sun, Tom Mulcair stepped up to the podium in Montreal’s sprawling Mount-Royal park and made his appeal to Canadian voters. “I’m looking forward to when progressives from across the country can join those in Quebec to form the first New Democrat government in Canadian history,” said the leader of a party which has long seemed the perpetual bridesmaid of Canadian politics.

The progressive New Democratic Party has held seats in Canada’s Parliament for decades but never taken power. Now, an election campaign which started a week ago presents supporters with the tantalizing possibility that – finally – the NDP has a legitimate shot at forming a national government, and of turning Canada away from the rightward course set by prime minister Stephen Harper.

Mulcair and his team hope to build on the party’s popularity in Quebec after their sweep of the Francophone province in the 2011 general election. Those results propelled the New Democratic Party (NDP) to official Opposition status in Canada’s House of Commons from their traditional standing in third, fourth, sometimes fifth place.

In the past few months, the party has surged in the polls and is now neck-and-neck with the ruling Conservatives. The Liberal Party – long considered Canada’s natural governing party – is trailing in third.



The NDP is now hoping they can capitalize on an appetite for change in an electorate growing weary of Harper. Outside their stable base of support, Conservative popularity has sagged amid an economic downturn and disaffection for a party that has been in power for nine years.

Progressive Canadians are especially outraged at Harper’s introduction of controversial anti-terrorism laws; environmentalists have bridled at a climate change record that includes dropping out of the Kyoto Protocol, while others are frustrated by what they see as Canada’s diminished standing on the world stage.

An early sign that change might be on the way came in May, when the provincial NDP swept into power in Alberta – Harper’s home province and an historic conservative bastion.

The improbable win sent a shockwave through Canadian politics and gave a shot in the arm to their federal counterparts. It was a signal to progressive voters that if they coalesced around the NDP, a national upset might also be in the cards. “Alberta made everything seem possible,” said NDP president Rebecca Blaikie.



But the question remains whether Mulcair and his team of mostly young unknown candidates can expand their reach and unite the progressive vote behind the party.



The NDP’s provincial headquarters sit in Mulcair’s own downtown Montreal electoral district – a vibrant slice of the city where wealthy Francophones, students, hipsters and immigrant populations mix.

From an office building on St-Laurent Boulevard – a street that was once the symbolic dividing line between the city’s French and English populations – the New Democrats have poured resources into maintaining their Quebec foothold as they seek to grow the party across the country.

Nationally, the party has worked to allay concerns they lean too politically far left, softening their image by dropping references to socialism from the party constitution in 2013 and tempering their message on issues like free trade.



But those changes may not have been enough to reassure Canadians. Even voters in Mulcair’s own riding expressed doubts that the party was ready for office.

A view of Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Photograph: Blair Gable/Reuters

Running errands on Parc Avenue, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Leo Bouchard, 62, said the NDP had done a good job representing the province, but predicted that the chilly economic climate will spook voters.

“We’re talking about a recession,” he said. “People won’t want to take a risk. They might not like Harper, but at least he offers stability.”

Bernard Desjarlais, 55, taking a mid-morning break up the street, called the NDP the “least objectionable choice” out of the three main federal parties because they stand “for the common man, for the poor”. But even he wondered whether they had the experience to govern. “They’ll be a good team in four years,” said Desjarlais.

The lack of high-profile candidates is weak spot for the New Democrats, according to political scientist Antonia Maioni, with Montreal’s McGill University. “We’re talking a government-in-waiting, we’re talking a potential cabinet,” she said. “Who can rise from that vanguard to really take a place beside Mr Mulcair on that podium?”

Harper – whose campaign slogan is “Proven Leadership” – is trying to capitalize on those doubts. He recently took aim at the Quebec New Democrat caucus, accusing them of being ineffective and lacking in star power.



In many ways, Quebec’s 2011 “orange wave”, named after the party’s trademark colour, was a fluke – an unexpected wave of success that swept a host of NDP paper candidates to parliament, including university students and a bartender who vacationed in Las Vegas during the campaign.



Early in the race, party strategists had predicted a modest breakthrough in the province, cautiously hoping for five or six seats. They walked away with 59 of the province’s 75 MPs.



The victory came down to an inspired race by Mulcair’s charismatic predecessor, Jack Layton, whose walking cane became a symbol of courage when he led the campaign despite recent hip surgery. But he was helped along by a dismal showing from the federal liberals – and the near complete collapse of the separatist Bloc Québécois party.

Quebecers, casting around for an alternative and tending to favour left-of-centre parties, fell for “le bon Jack”.



When Layton died of cancer in August 2011, the party rallied around Mulcair, , and polls indicate the New Democrats remain popular in Quebec, where they are expected to retain most of their seats, and are doing well in British Columbia and Ontario.

Federal NDP Leader Mulcair and his wife Catherine enjoy the Calgary Stampede parade in July. Photograph: Todd Korol/Reuters

“The NDP now has the largest pool of potential supporters in the Canadian electorate than any of the other two parties,” said pollster David Coletto. “People view Tom Mulcair as a potential prime minister, they’re open to voting for them.”

But Coletto also warned that Canada’s stagnating economy could drive voters back to the Conservative fold in October. “It raises the stakes of electing the NDP,” he said.

Coletto suggested the party might take a page from the British Labour party under Tony Blair, who campaigned successfully under the “New Labour” banner. “It was all about reassuring voters that new Labour wasn’t old Labour – that they weren’t going to raise your taxes, that they weren’t going to nationalize every industry,” he said.



The British Labour party eventually tacked left again after Blair stood down, and is now going through a turbulent leadership contest which will help define its identify as leftwing or centrist.

The NDP is attempting its own balancing act. Mulcair – seen as a pragmatic, centrist politician – hammered home that point in a televised leaders’ debate on Thursday, where he repeatedly tried to cast his party as the moderate choice between political extremes.



Matt Browne, who worked on New Labour campaigns in 2001 and 2005, argued modern progressive parties cannot win votes by shifting towards the centre, but instead need to offer a true alternative and aspirational economic message. Browne contends it was a vision former British Labour party leader Ed Miliband failed to present in the UK election earlier this year.



“The battleground of this [Canadian] election – in terms of the future progressive politics – is who owns the economy of the future,” said Browne, who is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based thinktank.



“It can’t be just a debate about inequality and the squeezed middle, it has to be about a modern vision for what a more diversified, broader Canadian economy looks like,” he said.



With global oil prices at multi-month lows and the oil pipeline projects championed by Harper held up by regulatory hurdles in Canada and the US, the Conservatives have come under severe criticism for failing to diversify the Canadian economy beyond its natural resources sector.



At this week’s debate Harper acknowledged what economic indicators have been suggesting for months: Canada is heading into recession, and low oil prices are probably to blame.

The New Democrats have rolled out some populist policy planks, promising to establish a national affordable daycare plan, a $15 federal minimum wage, and to close tax loopholes that primarily benefit the wealthiest Canadians.



They have also committed to hiking corporate tax rates to bring them closer to the G7 average while offering tax relief for small business and Canadian manufacturing.



But the road to election day on 19 October is long. While it pales in comparison to the United States’ political marathon where Democrat and Republican candidates are already fighting for election in 2016, Canada’s 78-day campaign will be the longest in modern Canadian history.

The Conservatives, running unopposed on the right, have so far largely ignored the NDP chief, concentrating their fire on Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, 43, who they characterize as inexperienced and “not ready” for high office.

Those attacks have eaten into Trudeau’s poll numbers, but the Liberal leader remains a threat as Mulcair’s main progressive rival. That raises the prospect that the progressive vote could split between the Liberals and the NDP, letting Harper remain in power.

Both Mulcair and Trudeau have been asked about the possibility of forming a coalition after the election but while the NDP leader has expressed openness to the idea, the liberals have balked at the possibility.



Pollsters are hesitant to make any bold predictions at this stage in the campaign, but NDP president Blaikie maintains progressive Canadians have been waiting for just this opportunity to rally behind her team.

“There have always been in Canada a large number of people who wanted to vote NDP, who thought about voting NDP and weren’t sure that a NDP government was possible,” she said. “This time, an NDP government is possible.”