Tom Mulcair’s Reformed Socialists Lead Canada’s Election Race

Tom Mulcair starts Canada’s election campaign in territory unfamiliar to leaders of the New Democratic Party -- as frontrunner. Where he ends up depends on taming his party’s fervent base, and parrying attacks on his economic policy and readiness to govern.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally launched the campaign Sunday for the Oct. 19 election, after two months of polls showing Mulcair, a 60-year-old lawyer leading a party that’s never formed government, in a small but steady lead.