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Mark Rutte, Dutch prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party (VVD), speaks to supporters during a campaign event in Wormerveer, Netherlands, on Saturday, Feb. 25.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Ruttes Liberals are making up ground onpopulist frontrunner Geert Wilders in the polls, suggesting that voter support is crystallizing in the final weeks of the campaign in favor of keeping Rutte in power.

Two polls released on Tuesday showed Wilderss anti-Islam Freedom Party with a one-seat advantage or even with the Liberals. Thats down from a lead of as many as 12 seats at the start of the year.

Two weeks to the day before the March 15 vote, the poll movement -- in so far as any polls can be taken seriously -- mirrors the last election in 2012, when major shifts only became apparent in the final stretch of the campaign. In the event, Rutte and Labor outperformed expectations and went on to form a coalition, while the Wilders challenge faded.

For a table of the latest Dutch polling intentions, including averages, click here

Another surge for the Liberals is really a possible scenario, Andre Krouwel, a professor of political science at Amsterdams VU University, said in a phone interview. Rutte managed to do this four years ago by mobilizing center-right voters that either considered voting for the Christian Democrats or the Freedom Party.

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The Netherlands is a bellwether for elections in Europe this year that will determine whether the populist surge that delivered the Brexit vote in the U.K. and helped Donald Trump into the White House will spread to the European Unions core. Wilders, like his fellow populist leader Marine Le Pen in France -- which votes in presidential elections in April and May -- is running on an anti-immigrant, anti-euro platform that blames the EU for taking away control from the nation state.

The Dutch election is being closely watched in neighboring Germany, which goes to the polls in September. Chancellor Angela Merkels chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, a Dutch speaker from the far west of Germany, welcomed recent poll trends that suggest waning support for populist parties across Europe, adding that hes not very impressed with Wilders.

Im happy to see -- as in France, as in Germany, in Austria as well as the Netherlands -- that the poll numbers for the PVV are going down, Altmaier said at an event in Berlin on Tuesday, referring to the Freedom Party by its Dutch acronym. I hope that a government can be formed very swiftly after the election without the PVV.

An EenVandaag poll published Tuesday put the Freedom Party and the Liberals on 22 seats apiece, the first time the parties have tied in about 20 months. A separate poll published by Kantar Public put the Freedom Party ahead with 28 seats, unchanged from a week ago, to 27 seats for the Liberals, up two.

Rutte predicted on Monday that his party would win 41 seats, matching its performance in 2012, while the Freedom Party would take 15 seats as it did the last time around.

I dont think the Liberal Party will lose, Rutte said at an event at Twente University. This is not what I hope but what I expect.

Ruttes confident tone two weeks before the elections reflects polls that suggest the gap with Wilders is closing, as well as the requirement for coalition partners.

No party ever wins a majority in the lower house of the Dutch Parliament, making coalitions inevitable. A coalition needs to have the support of parties totaling at least 76 seats to ensure it can get its legislation through. That further complicates Wilderss path to the premiership since he lacks the allies needed to form a government.

Almost all the established Dutch parties, including the Liberals and Labor, have ruled out governing with Wilders. That, however, hasnt stopped them from courting his followers. Immigration featured in a televised debate among party leaders on Sunday evening, with Labor and the opposition Christian Democrats both arguing for a halt to new arrivals.

Labor under Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher would take 12 seats according to the EenVandaag poll, down from 38 seats in 2012, while the Christian Democrats led by Sybrand van Haersma Buma were on 19 seats.

Even if Wilders narrowly beats Ruttes party, its the Liberals who would most likely form the government at the head of a five-party coalition, Jesse Groenewegen and Nic Vrieselaar of Rabobank wrote in a paper outlining election scenarios in early February.

Most parties have set up a cordon sanitaire around the Freedom Party, they said. Assuming Wilders wants to govern rather than head the opposition, any delegation he sends to sound out coalition options will quickly return empty-handed.

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Dutch Election Far From Over as Rutte's Liberals Reel in Wilders - Bloomberg