UPDATE: 5:05 p.m.

With election day just around the corner, prominent political figures are weighing in on the closely contested race in Kelowna.

On Wednesday, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and former B.C. Premier Christy Clark endorsed Liberal candidate Stephen Fuhr. Meanwhile, former B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper voiced their support for Conservative candidate Tracy Gray.

Clark visited Fuhr’s campaign headquarters on Wednesday afternoon to show her support.

“This is a close race. This has always been a close riding and it doesn't always vote for the federal Liberals, but I am here because I think this is the most consequential election in Canada in my lifetime,” Clark said.

“I come to Kelowna and I see the work that you are doing here to elect Stephen, who has done such a good job for this community in the past, who is going to continue to do that work when you re-elect him to Ottawa. This is the guy that has delivered for this place in the past, he has delivered for British Columbia. We need to deliver for him,” she added.

Fuhr said he’s grateful for the support.

“We know in Kelowna, given our electoral history, it is difficult to be competitive here and the reason is because you have to appeal to a broad range of people. I have had really, really great support from across party lines. This is an all-hands-on-deck, country-before-party moment,” he said.

ORIGINAL 2:10 p.m.

Two former B.C. premiers and a past prime minister are reaching out to Kelowna voters today, endorsing candidates in what's shaping up to be a very tight race.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and former premier Christy Clark threw their support behind Liberal candidate Stephen Fuhr Wednesday while former premier Gordon Campbell endorsed Conservative Tracy Gray on the same day.

These Wednesday endorsements likely reflect how close the race in the newly created riding of Kelowna looks with less than one week before Canada heads to voting stations. According to projections from polling aggregator 338Canada, the two candidates are in a dead heat and the riding is a toss up.

"This is a very important election, we need experience, and that's why I am supporting Stephen Fuhr," Chretien, who was prime minister to 1993 to 2003, said in a message posted online.

"Stephen understands what it takes to protect jobs and to protect our economy and to deliver for Kelowna."

Clark, who was B.C.'s premier from 2011 to 2017, is scheduled to make her support for Fuhr clear at a 3 p.m. press conference, but she's already been going door-to-door drumming up support for area Liberals in the race.

Campbell, B.C.'s premier from 2001 to 2011, expressed his support for Gray, and the Conservative Party as a whole.

"I think (Gray) will be a strong Conservative voice and a strong voice for Kelowna and British Columbia in Ottawa," Campbell said in an interview on Wednesday.

"I found in the past that Conservatives tend to go to Ottawa and tell them what B.C. thinks whereas Liberals go to Ottawa and come back and tell British Columbians what Ottawa thinks — I think we need a strong voice and a Conservative candidate that is willing to start dealing with the real challenges that were left after 10 years of frankly incompetent Liberal government."

The notion that the riding is a toss up is somewhat unique in the history of Kelowna. Elections Canada’s historical data shows that over the last 60-plus years there have been two political shifts away from conservative politics in the Central Okanagan.

The first time Kelowna had a Liberal MP was in 1968 when Kelowna, like the rest of the country, was swept up in "Trudeaumania" and voted in Bruce Howard. Howard was one of the 155 Liberals elected to the House of Commons that year and lost in the following election.

The next time Kelowna voted in a Liberal was when Fuhr was elected in the riding in 2015, as Justin Trudeau's version of "Trudeaumania" swept across the country.

He lost to Gray in the 2019 election.

An estimated 7.3 million Canadians — a record — cast their ballots in advance polls, according to Elections Canada. The non-partisan agency said, based on its preliminary figures, that marks a 25 per cent increase from the 5.8 million electors who voted in advance during the 2021 federal election.

General voting day is Monday.