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Election opinion polls for Sunday's newspapers have suggested the Lib Dems are up by as many as eight points, putting them just behind the Tories.The ComRes poll for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday puts the Conservatives on 31%, the Lib Dems on 29% and Labour on 27%.
The Tories warned of the dangers of a hung parliament while Labour said Lib Dem policies would get more scrutiny.
But Nick Clegg said people believed "something exciting" was happening.
The apparent swing follows the first prime ministerial TV debate on Thursday, in which Mr Clegg was acknowledged by his rivals to have shone.
Editor of the BBC's political research unit, David Cowling said what ComRes appeared to confirm was the "extraordinary shift in Lib Dem support as a result of the first prime ministerial debate".
However he warned it was difficult to say if the swing would translate to votes on polling day.
When the results of the ComRes poll were fed into the BBC's seat calculator, it showed Labour would still have the most seats with 279, the Conservatives 239 seats and the Lib Dems 103 seats and others 29 seats. The ComRes poll of 1,006 people was conducted on 16 and 17 April.
Meanwhile, an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph puts the Conservatives on 34%, Labour on 29% and the Lib Dems on 27%. It says this is the Conservatives' lowest rating in an ICM poll since September 2007. And the newspaper says this is the first time an ICM poll has shown such a narrow gap between the three main parties since September 2003. The majority of the 1,033 respondents were polled before Thursday's first prime ministerial debate.
Mr Clegg, speaking on a visit to Kingston Hospital in south west London, said: "I think change, real change is more possible than people think when a growing number of people start thinking, believing, that maybe we can do things differently.
"I think that is what is starting. I can't predict what is going to happen in the election campaign, but I think something exciting is starting to happen."
Asked if by "something different" he meant a formal coalition, he said: "I don't think we should put the cart before the horse."
But he said that more people were turning away from the "old politics" of Labour and the Conservatives.
'Big issues'
Mr Cameron told people in Gloucester that a hung parliament "would be a bunch of politicians haggling, not deciding".
"They would be fighting for their own interests, not fighting for your interests," he went on.
"They would not be making long-term decisions for the country's future, they would be making short-term decisions for their own future.
"The way we are going to get things done is to have a decisive Conservative government."
Gordon Brown, campaigning in Bedford, said the election was not about style and personality but about the big issues. "Let's make sure we have the recovery and don't let the Conservatives wreck the recovery," he continued.
Although he did not mention the Lib Dems - whose campaign is based around "fairness" - Mr Brown did end his speech by insisting the Labour Party were "greatest force for fairness in the country".This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.