We’re now in the home stretch of Canada’s federal election campaign — at seventy-eight days, the longest in modern Canadian history and the most important since 1988, when free trade with the United States was the defining issue.

For the first time in Canadian history, it is a close three-way race between the ruling Conservatives, the centrist Liberals, and the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP). While the NDP held a slight lead at the beginning of the campaign, the Liberals have since overtaken them. The party is now expected to finish third in Monday’s election.

The Liberals have managed to capture the electorate’s desire for change after nine years of Conservative rule.