The race for second place is well and truly under way.

The latest Survation poll for the Daily Record has Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck. It has just one percentage point between the two sides in both the constituency and regional votes.

When these figures are entered into the Scotland Votes seat predictor it would see Ruth Davidson's party become the second largest at Holyrood with 21 seats.

This will be music to her ears.

She and her advisers have taken a different approach to this election campaign. At last year's general election the Tories provided the most entertaining photocalls. Ruth driving a tank, acting as bingo caller and even serving customers from an ice cream van on Princes Street in Edinburgh.

She even went as far as to recreate Alex Salmond's infamous 'Solero lady' shot with BuzzFeed's Jamie Ross but the less said about that the better.

This time it has been very different. On a visit to a distillery in Stirlingshire this week she told me they were happy to leave the daft photocalls to the Lib Dems, who themselves are fighting to take fourth place in this election with a resurgent Green Party snapping at their heels.

She admitted they had to take things more seriously this year if they really wanted voters to see them as a credible opposition.

Hence we've seen Davidson on more visits to local businesses to talk up the party's policy on tax. More photocalls at nurseries to question the SNP's education policies. More discussions with farmers on the challenges facing rural Scotland.

All of these are key election issues and the Tories know voters must see them trying to offer the answers they want to hear.

And Ruth Davidson's mantra between now and polling day will be: "I can be the strong opposition the SNP needs".

In her face-to-face interview with STV's political editor Bernard Ponsonby this week she repeated that phrase several times and promised to hold Nicola Sturgeon's party to account, along with fighting against a second independence referendum.

She makes sure her promise of being the "leader of the official opposition" gets into every interview. She is happy to be asked about the constitution because she thinks her party is strongest on standing against indyref 2.

Her focus is those who voted No in the 2014 referendum because she knows many will have already accepted that the SNP are on course to win this election and the question then becomes: "Who is best placed to take them on?"

She wants to convince them it's her.

In the last Holyrood elections the Conservatives received only 15% in share of the vote. Davidson expects this year to be their best showing in a Scottish Parliament election but she won't be drawn on figures. "I'm not putting a ceiling on my own ambition," she told Bernard.

But she knows this could well be her year and she will have a figure of the number of votes that she wants to hit. Why? Because for so many years the Tories have been toxic in Scotland and Ruth Davidson knows her connection with voters means she is on the cusp of changing that come May 5.

Analysis by Carole Erskine, STV's political reporter. You can contact her at carole.erskine@stv.tv.