If you wanted an interesting election, this one is certainly shaping up as the most interesting in the last ten years:

So far, based on the three-day sample Nanos works with for their daily poll release, there hasn’t been a lot of identifiable shifting support among the parties in spite of the leaked AG report:

Update: Of course, not all polls agree, but the Compas poll for the Toronto Sun has radically different numbers based on the regional breakdown:

H/T to David Akin for the image (via Twitpic).

The Liberals appear to the party primarily benefitting from a slackening in NDP support:

The most useful polling right now is coming from Nanos Research, who are conducting daily summaries of the previous three-day trend. After getting slapped around by the press much of last week, the Conservatives are . . . the only party making gains over the last three days:

• Conservative: 42%, up 1.6%
• Liberal: 28%, down 1%
• NDP: 16%, down 0.5%
• Bloc Quebecois: 8%, unchanged
• Green: 4%, down 0.2%

The Twitter reactions are . . . surprised. Paul Wells “If the Conservatives lost week one and gained four points, the Liberals can’t afford to win many more weeks.” Andrew Coyne “Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone.”

Updating the non-scientific, unbalanced sample of published polls:

So far, the opposition hasn’t been able to make much headway against that strong Conservative lead:

Here’s a summary from Kathryn Blaze Carlson:

The first poll since Saturday’s election call shows Tory support largely unchanged, bringing into question the opposition’s early emphasis on ethics.

Despite a weekend of being hammered for their alleged contempt of Parliament, the Conservatives boast the support of 41% of decided voters — 17 points ahead of the Liberals, who are at 24%. The NDP is at 19%, and the Bloc 10%.

The Forum Research poll also breaks it down by seat count, suggesting that if the election were held today, the Tories would surge from 143 seats to 162 seats, the Liberals would drop 17 seats to 61, the Bloc would rise from 44 to 51 and the NDP would be whittled from 36 seats to 34. The poll, conducted over the weekend via telephone with a random sample of 2,095 voters, is within the range of approximately plus or minus 10 seats for each party.

The seat projections reflect the regional strength of the BQ, who only run candidates in Quebec, and the natural disproportion of first-past-the-post voting.

Update: Publius points out the real root of Canada’s election issues:

Unfortunately neither you, nor any of the party leaders, have the temerity to admit what is actually wrong with Ottawa. Let me give you a hint. It’s not Stephen Harper’s pragmatism. It isn’t Lord Iggy’s incompetence. Not even Jack Layton’s spend till you’re broke ideology. The problem with Ottawa is Quebec. Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois are merely the symptoms. Our national democracy is broken because part of the electorate refuses to participate.

In the 2006 and 2008 federal elections there were 308 seats up for grabs. That’s 75 in Quebec and 233 in the Rest of Canada (ROC). The 2006 election saw the Conservatives win 114 seats in ROC and 10 in Quebec. The Conservatives did better in the ROC in 2008 winning 133 seats and holding on to their seats in Quebec. If we were to remove Quebec’s 75 seats from Parliament a majority government could be formed with 117 seats. On that basis, including only their ROC seats, the Harper Tories would have won a strong minority government in 2006 and a clear majority in 2008. To say, as the opposition parties and the MSM have, that Harper has failed to seal the deal with Canadians is only partially correct.

For all his faults, chronicled in some detail on this blog over the years, Stephen Harper has in fact convinced a critical mass of the interested Canadian electorate of his fitness to lead us. Those who vote for the Bloc Quebecois have declared their disinterest in Canada as a working proposition.

The Bloc Quebecois are not political party in any meaningful sense but merely a pressure group that has won election to parliament. It is because of this we find ourselves in a series of weak hung parliaments. The BQ offers no vision for Canada, only its potential destruction. It’s bargaining position with the other parties in recent parliaments has been of routine blackmail. Vote what is in the best interests of Quebec, or else.

The poll numbers will change over the course of the election as muck is raked, accusations are hurled, and reputations are assailed (assuming that the Conservative government is defeated in Parliament later today). The last poll was conducted by IPSOS for Global News:

I’ll try to update this chart as the polls are published. I doubt that the 19% lead the Tories had yesterday will hold up for the first few days of the election campaign, but anything is possible.

Update: As expected, the government has fallen, so the election is on. Tasha Kheiriddin congratulates the media on their success:

And they’re off. In newsrooms across the country, journalists are tossing their Team 2012 shirts on the trash heap, while the Team 2011 folks are collecting their $5 bets. Sure, they could have cashed in on Tuesday, but it’s always prudent to wait for the chickens to actually hatch. Or, in this case, come home to roost. After stoking election fever for months, the media now get to feast on the fruits of their labors: bad plane food, no sleep, and crazy deadlines.