Although Turner was not required to call an election until 1985, internal data initially showed that the Liberals had regained the lead in opinion polls. Turner and his advisers were also mindful of the fact that Trudeau had seemingly missed an opportunity to take advantage of favourable opinion polls in the latter half of the 1970s, when he waited the full five years to call an election only to go down to an (albeit temporary) defeat. Another factor was that the majority that the Liberals had won at the previous election had slowly been eroded in the years that followed. While the Liberal caucus still outnumbered the combined Tory and New Democratic caucuses, a series of pending by-elections could potentially have reduced Turner's government to a minority and left it in serious danger of being toppled by a motion of no confidence. With this in mind, the new Prime Minister requested that Queen Elizabeth II delay her tour of Canada, and asked Governor-General Jeanne Sauvé to dissolve Parliament on July 4. In accordance with Canadian constitutional practice, Sauvé granted the request and set the election for September 4.