OTTAWA -- In the shadow of a historic national election in the United States, Canada is amid its own historic campaign that could redraw the electoral map and produce a fundamental political realignment.

Two weeks before Canadians vote, the governing Conservatives are expected to win more seats in Parliament than any other party. Polls show a consistent double-digit lead over the Liberals, the official opposition.

But the big question is whether the Conservatives can win a majority of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, which would allow them to govern unchallenged for as long as five years. If they once again win only a plurality of seats, it would make them vulnerable to defeat at the hands of the other parties at any time.

The quest for a majority was the reason Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Sept. 7 called for the coming election. He said Parliament had become "dysfunctional," and asked Canadians for a strong mandate in the Oct. 14 vote.

Mr. Harper has been in power since February 2006, when he defeated the Liberals, who had governed since 1993. Since then, he has nudged Canada to the right -- cutting taxes, abolishing programs, cracking down on crime, increasing government accountability, boosting defense spending and twice extending the country's military commitment in Afghanistan, where it has some 3,000 troops.

He has shrewdly played off one party against another in Canada's multi-party Parliament. Indeed, while minority governments are historically short and unstable, his has lasted longer (about 2¹/₂ years) than any since the country's founding in 1867.

But for all their success in navigating the shoals of a hung parliament, the Conservatives have never been terribly popular with Canadians. Their public approval rating has seldom risen above 40 percent in the polls, the level of support usually necessary to produce a majority of seats in Canada's simple-plurality system.

The likely reason is that Canadians are moderate, hugging the center politically, and these Conservatives are seen as too conservative. In fact, critics warn of a Conservative "secret agenda" to cut social programs, curtail arts and public broadcasting funding and challenge the long-standing national consensus on capital punishment (Canada has no death penalty), same-sex marriage and abortion (both are legal).

Mr. Harper, 49, is a stocky economist from Alberta who made his career in the political backrooms. He is seen as humorless and awkward, and Canadians have never warmed to him personally. To soften his aloofness, the Conservatives in campaign ads have shown him wearing a sweater, playing the piano and holding babies.

Yet, as the 37-day campaign enters the homestretch, the Conservatives are still polling under 40 percent. Will that be enough for a majority? This time, quite possibly.

The reason is that the Conservatives have carefully cultivated their core right-of-center constituency. The rest of the electorate is divided among the Liberals and three other left-of-center parties: the New Democrats, the Bloc Quebecois and the Greens.

While there have been five parties or more before in Parliament, this election is unique. Never has a ruling Conservative Party faced four "liberal" parties. For Mr. Harper, a brilliant strategist who dreams of building an enduring Conservative majority in Canada -- as Karl Rove dreamed of building an enduring Republican majority in the United States -- the stars may be aligned this autumn.

The Conservatives have been helped by the collapse of the fabled Liberals, who have governed Canada for most of its 141 years. Led by Stephane Dion, a francophone political scientist from Montreal who entered politics in 1996, their support has been eroding sharply.

Mr. Dion, 53, is a weak campaigner. While he is intelligent and principled, he has struggled in broken English to sell his contentious plan to introduce a carbon tax to address global warming. Borrowing tactics from the Republicans in the United States, the Conservatives have cast him as reckless, indecisive and without charisma.

Mr. Dion is seen to be hurting the Liberal "brand." A recent front-page story in The Ottawa Citizen on the party's troubles asked: "Fortress to flophouse? Has the once-impregnable Liberal Party of Canada mortgaged its hold on power?"

The Liberals are now running third in Quebec, where they used to win most of the 75 seats, and are in danger of losing their hold in Ontario, the country's most populous province and industrial heartland.

Now, the New Democrats, traditionally the third party in Canada, are trying to supplant the Liberals as the official opposition. In Quebec, though, where they have only one seat, they have to worry about the Bloc Quebecois, which champions an independent Quebec and leans left on social policy.

The wild card is the nascent Green Party. It has never elected a member of parliament, but it is polling at around 10 percent this campaign, draining support from the NDP and the Liberals.

In the televised leaders debate last week, the Greens were represented for the first time by leader Elizabeth May, a lawyer and environmentalist born in Connecticut.

While it is too early to say how votes will turn into seats, it is possible that a fractured electorate will give the Conservatives scarcely more than a third of the popular vote. But in five-way constituency races, polarized along ideological lines, that may be enough to give them their much-coveted majority in Parliament.