Conservative Leader Stephen Harper heads into Monday and Tuesday's leaders debates as the clear frontrunner.

In a poll conducted by The Strategic Counsel for CTV and The Globe and Mail, here is how respondents ranked the leaders (change in percentage points from a pre-debate poll conducted Dec. 12 and 13):

• Stephen Harper, Conservatives: +16 (+20)
• Paul Martin, Liberals: -5 (-11)
• Jack Layton, NDP: -4 (-8)
• Gilles Duceppe, Bloc Quebecois: +3 (+8)

The polling for the questions -- If you had to guess right now, who do you think will perform the best in these debates? Who do you think will perform the worst? -- was conducted between Jan. 5 and 8. The sample size was 1,000, and the margin of error is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

In polling conducted after the Dec. 14 and 15 debates, Martin was deemed the winner by 21 per cent of respondents, versus 11 per cent for Harper.

However, people also said the debates did little to change how they would vote. Only about 38 per cent of respondents actually watched, compared to about 61 per cent who said they would.

Since then, the Liberal campaign has lost traction while the Conservatives have zoomed ahead in both popularity and momentum -- with voting day on Jan. 23.

In the poll released Sunday night, the Tories hold a 37-29 lead in popular support over the Liberals, and have almost a 40-point lead in momentum.

Tory momentum

As to how that will affect Harper's debate strategy, LaFlamme said: "... I'm told they're going to stick to the strategy that's worked along. Keep it to accountability, that's his theme. With ethics and investigations top of mind, he wants to keep it there."

Senator Hugh Segal said indeed, that's exactly what the Tories plan to do.

"I think our leader has to stay the course: continue to respect the voter, put before him the priorities of what a Conservative government in minority would be and how they would work with other parties," said Segal, a former Progressive Conservative moderate who's been acting as communications adviser to Harper, on Monday's Canada AM.

Segal added that, unlike the prime minister, who's been "unfocused and flailing about" thus far in this campaign, Harper has been ahead of the game in dealing with specific policy areas such as child care, national defence, and "important priorities with respect to accountability in Ottawa."

Now, with a Tory government a possibility, Martin must use the debates and any other tool at his disposal to kill Tory momentum and rekindle his own campaign.

"We expect the prime minister to be very aggressive and direct in his attacks at Mr. Harper. We're prepared for that," Conservative strategist Tim Powers told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

"The audience will probably be several times larger than the debates before Christmas,'' added Liberal strategist Mike Robinson told CP.

"I think a lot of people will in fact be tuning in for the first time to really try to get a handle on the leaders that are on stage.''

He described the debates as an opportunity for the leaders to speak directly to Canadians, instead of being filtered by the media.

"The media, I would say, have been easily distracted by other issues.''

Former Liberal cabinet minister Brian Tobin said all the weight added to tonight and tomorrow night's debates could turn out to be a positive thing for Martin.

"It should lead Canadians now to take a hard look at the policies of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and what they think he might do were he to form a government, because that is now clearly a very real possibility," Tobin said Monday on Canada AM.  

"So in my judgment, if it moves us away from the kind of negative American-style advertising campaign we've had and gets us refocused on what, in fact, the parties are actually proposing, that might be a very good thing at this stage of the campaign."

Tobin conceded that the latest Strategic Counsel poll is "not great news to wake up to," but he added that people will now be studying the Tory promises with greater circumspection.

"What is it they stand for? And the fact is, they haven't told us where they're going to
find the billions of dollars to pay for this platform."

Format

The leaders will deal with 16 questions during the two-hour event. Steve Paikin, who will moderate the English-language debate, said the television consortium was still working on the questions as of Sunday afternoon.

"We're hoping to put tough, strong, pointed questions to each leader in each section,'' Paikin told CTV's Question Period, adding the consortium hopes to avoid overlap in topics with the first debate.

Some complained the first debate's format didn't allow for enough head-to-head debate amongst the leaders.

"... I think the format actually does allow for more engagement than perhaps took place in the first debate," Paikin said.

"I do have some prerogative to follow up, and when that takes place, it can be more free for all, it can be more engaging. I have to, obviously, make sure everybody sticks to the time limits.

"But you remember in the first debate, Mr. Martin looked over at Mr. Duceppe and engaged him directly on the issue of national unity. That certainly was within the rules, and they chose not to do it very much in the first debate but they certainly can and I hope they will."

The English-language debate will be televised on CTV and Newsnet starting at 8 p.m. on Monday.