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Stephen Harper is an election victory away from entering the pantheon of Canada's longest- serving prime ministers and cementing his Conservative agenda in a country dominated by Liberals for most of the past century.

Standing in his way is the heir to that Liberal legacy.

In just over a year as Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, 42, has emerged as the most serious challenger to Harper's nine-year reign, bringing back from the brink of political extinction the party his father Pierre led for 16 years.

Harper and Trudeau, along with leader Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party, are already gearing up for an election scheduled for no later than October 2015, as parliament returns today from a three-month recess.

Public opinion polls now suggest the Liberals are leading and poised to give Harper his toughest political fight since he became prime minister, as he seeks to overcome voter fatigue and scandals that have implicated his office.

To win, Harper "has to slow down Trudeau," said Darrell Bricker, a pollster with Ipsos Reid in Toronto who worked for former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the last Conservative to win a majority before Harper. "Justin Trudeau is for real."

According to polling aggregator threehundredeight.com, the Liberals hold a seven percentage point lead over the Conservatives and have led in almost every poll since Trudeau became Liberal leader in April 2013. This represents an abrupt turnaround from the May 2011 general election in which the Liberals fell to third place, a historic low that led some political observers to question the party's future viability.

At stake for Harper, 55, is the chance to become one of the country's five longest serving prime ministers. Another win would mark the first time in more than a century that a party leader has won four straight elections.

Finish Program

Victory would also give Harper the opportunity to finish enacting a program that has included cutting federal taxes as a share of output to the smallest in more than 50 years, shrinking the size of government and streamlining approvals for resource development. His administration has broken from past governments by pulling out of the Kyoto climate change treaty, emphasizing law and order and promoting an uncompromising foreign policy in areas such as the Middle East and Ukraine. It's a record Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called a "guide" to center-right parties around the world.

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Trudeau blocks Harper path to history as Canada Liberals revive