How tough is Charest's re-election fight?

SHERBROOKE, Que. -- How tough is the challenge ahead for Jean Charest's Liberals, with polls suggesting their defeat and even a loss in the premier's own riding?

Even the guy who lives in Charest's childhood home might not vote for him. He actually voted against the premier in the last election, and is weighing his options this time.

Philippe Duvivier, who bought the red-brick house in Sherbrooke, Que., from the Charest family about four years ago, said the feeling in town toward the premier is just as uncertain.

"It's divided," Duvivier said on the front stoop of the two-storey home on Portland Boulevard that housed the Charests for half a century.

"There are people for him and people against him."

Charest has clung to the Sherbrooke seat in eight federal or provincial elections since he entered politics in 1984. He has won the riding eight times, even surviving the devastation of the Progressive Conservative defeat in 1993 that reduced the party to two seats.

There have been some close calls. This campaign could be his toughest yet.

New polls released Friday suggested the Parti Quebecois had a solid lead among francophone voters, teetering between minority and majority government territory.

Another survey, taken in his Sherbrooke riding, revealed that his PQ opponent -- a former Bloc Quebecois federal MP for the area -- had a 15-point lead.

There were lots of smiles in Serge Cardin's campaign office Friday.

One grinning young man inside the office rubbed his hands together and approached a reporter: "This is going to be an historic election."

Cardin said locals remember what he was able to accomplish when he was a Bloc MP and they're fed up with the premier and the "odour of corruption" around his Liberal party.

"It creates a pretty imposing divide," Cardin said Friday after visiting workers at a factory in the city.

"Right now I have the confidence of the population."

Still, Cardin remains cautious when reading the polls. He has fresh memories of losing his federal seat in the surprising Quebec surge by the New Democrats last year. In the 2011 election, he watched his early lead in the polls evaporate and he fears it could happen again if his supporters sense an easy win.

"We're not taking anything for granted," said the former Sherbrooke city councillor, who first won the federal riding for the Bloc in a 1998 byelection after Charest jumped to provincial politics. Cardin won five federal races there.

But one Sherbrooke man, who remembers a scrappy young Charest, warns the old warrior shouldn't be counted out.

On balance, he says, the Charest Liberals have done well.

"Evidently, I am pro-Charest, but this doesn't mean that the government is perfect -- perfect governments don't exist," said Bernard Bonneau, a mentor to the wild-haired, teenage Charest.

"I think he is an excellent premier."

Bonneau, who was a religious councillor at Charest's high school, believes corruption allegations against the Liberal leader have been greatly exaggerated.

The 78-year-old praised the Liberal government for how it guided the province through the global recession.

"This is a riding that has always been quite close," he said.

Charest won the riding in 2008 by earning around 45 per cent of the votes, compared to nearly 38 per cent for his PQ rival -- a difference of 2,314 ballots.

In 2007, he received under 37 per cent of the votes, compared to nearly 33 per cent for the PQ candidate -- a gap of 1,332.

On election night, one TV news outlet had even jumped the gun and erroneously declared that Charest had lost his seat.