If Ontarians want to get an idea of who might next lead the province, they should look to the Kitchener-Centre riding, according to Barry Kay, a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo.

"Kitchener Centre is actually a great bellwether generally. It's almost always on the side of the party that wins Ontario, both federally and provincially," said Kay in an interview with Craig Norris on The Morning Edition Thursday.

The trend goes back over 20 years, according to Kay.

"I think Kitchener Centre is just sort of representative of the middle point of Ontario. It's not nearly as urbanized and liberal," said Kay. "It has some of the components that the big cities Toronto and Hamilton have, but not to the same degree."

At the same time, "it's not nearly as traditional as some of the smaller ridings, by smaller I mean smaller populations, in Oxford County and in Lambton and so forth," said Kay.

"It's not always exactly the middle, but it's usually pretty close."

Kay works with the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy. The group is monitoring polls and creating seat projections during the Ontario provincial election.

"The polls actually have been all over the place, to me that's one of the big stories of this election campaign. What we've seen is kind of a bi-modal distribution, some polls show the Conservatives with a substantial lead, other polls show the Liberals with a substantial lead. When you put them all together, in fact, it's a virtual tie," said Kay.

As for the NDP, Kay says that the party is in "a trap."

"The NDP has had enormous influence in this past legislature, they were really the hammer that was pushing the Wynne government's policies. However, once we get into the electoral context, they're sort of seen as the third party again," said Kay.