Two Liberal leadership candidates who appear to be jockeying for a second-place finish say they are staying in the race to the end, no matter that their former rival Marc Garneau’s polling data gives Justin Trudeau a seemingly insurmountable lead.

Garneau bowed out of the race Wednesday morning, calling a Trudeau victory a “fait accompli” after his campaign’s internal polling gave the younger Quebecer more than 70 per cent support among Liberal members and supporters.

The voting pool for the Liberal leadership has been expanded from card-carrying, paid members to include a new category of supporters, who have signed up for free.

Vancouver Quadra MP Joyce Murray, who had just over seven per cent support in the Garneau campaign survey, said Wednesday evening she is “absolutely” in the race until the Liberal convention on April 14.

“The outlook is not glum at all,” Murray told CTV’s Power Play. “I want to say that even though the spaceman has bowed out, the down-to-earth businesswoman is going on all cylinders.”

Murray said the survey “certainly isn’t a scientific poll by any means,” pointing out that it did not take into account the number of members and supporters who are actually registered to vote. Earlier Wednesday, less than a third of the 294,000 members and supporters had actually registered to vote, with a deadline looming Thursday.

The Trudeau camp sought to have that extended by a week over fears that as many as 100,000 supporters who did not provide email addresses when they signed up would miss the registration deadline and, therefore, would be unable to cast a ballot.

On Wednesday evening, Liberal Party president Mike Crawley announced on Twitter that the number of registered supporters and members had passed the 100,000 mark, and the deadline would be extended by one week “so we can keep it up.”

Murray said unlike the Trudeau campaign, she has been “doing really well” getting members and supporters registered. Before the new deadline was announced, Murray said that while she did not support an extension, she would support any decision in order to be a team player.

“I know the party is doing their best to balance having as much participation as possible -- because that’s really what this race is all about -- and balance that with respecting the rules and the goalposts that were set months ago for all of the campaigns to understand and work towards,” Murray said.

Murray said she will spend the next month or so leading up to the convention reaching out to Garneau’s supporters, as well as those who have signed up but have yet to pledge support for a particular candidate.

Martha Hall Findlay, who was put at about 5 per cent support in the survey, also said “of course not” to the question of whether she had doubts about remaining in the race.

“I am running because we need a substantive, experienced alternative who understands economics, who understands business, who understands at the same time the challenges facing Canadians and their families, and who understands that for this country we really need a vision of prosperity but prosperity with purpose,” Hall Findlay told Power Play.

When asked about Trudeau’s vast support, Hall Findlay pointed out that every riding, no matter the number of registered voters, will be given equal weight. With each riding worth 100 points, the end result is difficult to predict without having a clear picture of where each candidate’s support lies.

“This is something that’s really important for the Liberal Party of Canada,” Hall Findlay said. “We have four, almost five weeks to go. Nothing is sure until April 14.”

The other remaining candidates are lawyers David Bertschi and Deborah Coyne, former MP Martin Cauchon, and former Royal Canadian Air Force commander Karen McCrimmon.

With files from The Canadian Press