Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole surpasses popularity of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ahead of election

According to the latest nightly tracking conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News and the Globe and Mail ending Thursday night, and released on Friday morning, ballot support for Conservatives is at 35.7 percent. Liberal support, by comparison, is as 30.7 percent.

"Looking at the trend, Erin O'Toole is shaping up to be a political freight train," said pollster Nik Nanos on CTVNews' Trend Line podcast Friday. "It's been a game changer of an election and Erin O'Toole definitely has momentum."

Popularity for the two parties has switched since the election was called on August 15. An August 12 poll found that support for Conservatives was at 28.4 percent, and support for liberals was at 33.4 percent.

The latest tracking data, according to CTV, places O'Toole in the number one spot popularity-wise, at 31.1 percent. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is at 27.3 percent, with NDP leader Jagmeet Singh trailing at 19.6 percent.

"When you look at the trend line the Conservatives are incrementally picking up basically every day," said Nanos. "I think we have to say, factoring the ballot numbers, that O'Toole has been the top performer in this campaign, and O'Toole's performance on a day-to-day basis had been driving that incremental increase."

Trudeau's election call itself has come into question, with a vast majority of the Canadian public believing that the election is unnecessary.

A Nanos poll conducted at the end of August found that 76 percent of Canadians thought the election was either unnecessary or somewhat not necessary. 23 percent said it was necessary or somewhat necessary.