Ridings to watch: Oakville and Oakville North–Burlington

Throughout the campaign, I will be profiling some of the ridings to watch. Today's selections: the neighbouring Ontario ridings of Oakville and Oakville North–Burlington.

Major Candidates (Oakville)

Conservative Party: Terence Young (incumbent)
Liberal Party: John Oliver
New Democratic Party: Che Marville
Green Party: TBD

Major Candidates (Oakville North–Burlington)

Conservative Party: Effie Triantafilopoulos
Liberal Party: Pam Damoff
New Democratic Party: Janice Best
Green Party: Adnan Shahbaz

Oakville and Oakville North–Burlington have followed a parallel history in recent years. Both of these were easy Liberal victories in the three elections held between 1997 and 2004. But in 2006, these two ridings tightened up considerably. The Liberals managed to hold off the Conservatives in Oakville, but were beaten in Halton (the predecessor riding of Oakville North–Burlington) by the Tories' Garth Turner, who would eventually cross the floor to the Liberals anyway. In 2008, Terence Young in Oakville and Lisa Raitt in Halton won by fair margins, and increased them in 2011.

Young won Oakville with 52% of the vote, beating out the Liberals' Max Khan, who took 31%. The New Democrats' James Ede captured 14% of the vote, which was a recent high for them. Young won almost every single poll in the riding, the boundaries of which have not changed for this election.

Oakville North–Burlington, however, is an entirely new riding carved out of the southeastern portion of Halton. Raitt won that portion of the riding handily, losing only one poll and taking 54% of the vote, with the Liberals' Connie Laurin-Bowie at 27% and the NDP's Patricia Heroux at 16%.

So the two Oakville ridings showed very similar levels of support in 2011: the Conservatives just over 50%, the Liberals at around 30%, and the New Democrats at around 15%. That would suggest capturing both ridings would be a tall order for the Liberals, and a virtually impossible one for the NDP.

The Conservatives' task has been made a little more difficult as Raitt has opted to run in the new riding of Milton, which comes from the bulk of Halton. In her place, the Tories are running Effie Triantafilopoulos, who has served as Chief of Staff of a few ministers on Parliament Hill, in Oakville North–Burlington. Young, a Conservative backbencher who started his elected political career as a Progressive Conservative MPP from 1995 to 1999, is running again for the party in Oakville.

His main challenger will be the Liberals' John Oliver (no, not that one), a former President and CEO of the Halton Healthcare Service and an assistant deputy minister in the provincial health ministry. In Oakville North–Burlington, the Liberals are running city councilor Pam Damoff.

Running for the New Democrats in that riding is Janice Best, director of the COPE union, while health consultant Che Marville is running for the party in Oakville.

The Greens have not yet named a candidate for Oakville, while Adnan Shahbaz, an instructional coach in the local school board, is running for the party in Oakville North–Burlington.

Proj. as of Sept 13 - Ridings highlighted in light blue

Along with Burlington, which is a much safer riding for the Conservatives, the projection currently identifies these two ridings as the last Conservative seats separating Liberal-dominated Mississauga from the NDP's fortress in Hamilton.

But they are very close. Oakville is currently projected to go Conservative by less than a point, with Young projected at between 39.1% and 45.3% support to Oliver's 36.6% to 43.5%. The NDP's Marville, at 12.7% to 14.3%, and the Greens, at 3.6% to 4.3%, are not considered to be important players in the race.

That is also the case in Oakville North–Burlington, where the NDP's Best is projected to take between 15.4% and 17.3%, while the Greens' Shahbaz would take between 3.3% and 3.9%.

The race is instead between Triantafilopoulos (38.5% to 44.5%) and Damoff (34.9% to 41.5%). The tight race makes these two Oakville ridings two of the closest neighbouring contests in the country.

That is, as long as current trends hold in Ontario. The projection current gives the Liberals 35% and the Tories 34.3% support, with the NDP at 25.5%. When the Liberals were polling more strongly in the province just days ago (they were at 40.6% on Sept. 9), these were two ridings that would be at the top of the list of those liable to swing over to them. But that Liberal mini-surge was made primarily on the backs of the New Democrats, who appear to be recovering somewhat (from a low of 22.3% at the time of that Liberal high). If that continues, ridings like these become much more difficult for the Liberals to win.

This would seem to be the key to these two ridings. When the Liberals used to win these ridings in the late 90s and early 2000s, the New Democrats took under 10% of the vote. But a vote split can't really be blamed for the Conservatives' 2011 victories here, as they captured a majority of the vote in both of these ridings.

Marginal seats like these, if the race continues to be three-headed, could end up deciding who places first, second, and third in the national seat count. Oakville and Oakville North–Burlington are two ridings to keep an eye on.

Riding to watch: Saskatoon–University

Throughout the campaign, I will be profiling some of the ridings to watch. Today's selection: the Saskatchewan riding of Saskatoon–University.

Major Candidates

Conservative Party: Brad Trost (incumbent)
New Democratic Party: Claire Card
Liberal Party: Cynthia Block
Green Party: Valerie Harvey

It has been awhile since ridings in Saskatchewan were ones to watch, but the new riding boundaries in the province have made it a true battleground. And one of the ridings that looks like it will be hotly contested is Saskatoon–University.

Brad Trost has been a Conservative MP since 2004, when he first won the riding of Saskatoon–Humboldt, the closest thing to Saskatoon–University's predecessor riding. That was a close contest: Trost took 27% of the vote, with the NDP's Nettie Wiebe taking 26%, a few tenths of a percentage point more than the Liberal candidate, while out-going independent MP Jim Pankiw took 20% of the vote.

After that, though, Trost easily won the riding in 2006, 2008, and 2011. In that last vote, he captured 52.7% of ballots cast, with the NDP taking 35.1%, and the Liberals just 8%.

Re-distribution has had a big impact, however. Trost had won massively in the rural parts of the old riding, though the population in these polls was low. Those areas have been lopped off to form part of the riding of Carlton Trail–Eagle Creek. The area around College Park East in Saskatoon, which Trost won in 2011, is also gone.

However, it isn't all bad news for Trost. A section of the city on the west bank of the Saskatchewan River that voted Conservative has been bolted on to Saskatoon–University. But the bulk of the riding is now urban, and the sections of it that the New Democrats won in 2011 (the section towards the city centre along the river) are still there. Trost did win in the northeastern suburbs of the city, however. So unlike the neighbouring riding of Saskatoon West, this is not one that the NDP would have won with the redistributed boundaries.

Instead, the results in the new boundaries were 48.6% for Trost, with the NDP capturing 38% and the Liberals taking 9.6%.

Trost is up for re-election, and his main opponent is the NDP's Claire Card, a veterinarian and teacher in the city. A better-known face may be that of the Liberal candidate, Cynthia Block. She is a former journalist and broadcaster, having co-anchored the CTV evening news in Saskatoon. The Greens are running lawyer Valerie Harvey.

The projection is as close as it gets, but gives the nod narrowly to Card. Taking into account polls in the field to September 9, she is projected to have the support of between 33.3% and 37.4% of voters, with Trost projected to take between 32.9% and 38% of the vote. As you can see in the breakdown (taken from the new interactive riding map here on ThreeHundredEight.com), the model gives it, on average, to Card by 0.1 points.

Block is projected to take between 21.4% and 25.4% of the vote, with the Greens' Harvey projected at between 5.4% and 6.4%.

This will be an interesting riding to watch on election night. It is one that the New Democrats can pick up in Saskatchewan, but is not as much of a slam dunk as Saskatoon West or a likely gain like Regina–Lewvan. The Conservatives have an incumbent in Trost, which is not the case in other ridings in the province. And the Liberals have a candidate with some name recognition.

The question might be whether the Liberals will take as much of the vote as they are projected to take at the moment. If Card is seen as the more likely person to beat Trost, Liberals may flock to her - giving her a more comfortable margin of victory than the regional swings would have predicted.

According to an Environics poll conducted for LeadNow on August 15-16, it appears that this has not happened yet - and that it might not even be necessary for Card to win. The survey, which included 629 decided voters, gave Card the lead with 41%, followed by Trost at 34% and Block at 22%. The margin of error on a sample that size is about four points.

But that was ages ago, now. The campaign has rumbled on for almost another month, and more than a month is still left to go. Things could change drastically nationally, regionally, and in this riding. But I think it will be one to watch on October 19.

Riding to watch: Edmonton Centre

Throughout the campaign, I will be profiling some of the ridings to watch. Today's selection: the Alberta riding of Edmonton Centre.

Major Candidates

Conservative Party: James Cumming
New Democratic Party: Gil McGowan
Liberal Party: Randy Boissonnault
Green Party: David Parker

Edmonton Centre used to be a perennial tight race, but it joined most other ridings in Alberta as an easy seat for the Conservatives in the 2008 and 2011 elections. This time, it looks like Edmonton Centre could be a close race once again.

The Liberals were the last non-Conservative party to hold the riding, with Anne McLellan having won it in 2004 by a narrow margin: 42.5% against 41.1% for the Conservatives' Laurie Hawn. The riding then swung over to the Conservatives as the party took power, with Hawn capturing 44.9% of the vote to 38.6% for McLellan.

The riding moved more heavily over to the Conservative camp in 2008, when Jim Wachowich carried the Liberal banner. Hawn took 49% of the vote then, with Wachowich taking just 27.4%. Hawn's margin of victory increased in 2011, but his vote share actually dropped to 48%. It was the NDP's Lewis Cardinal who finished second, with 25.4% against 22.4% for the Liberal candidate.

In that election, Hawn won the westernmost part of the riding, with the New Democrats and Liberals winning many of the polls in the easternmost part of the riding, a section of Edmonton Centre that the Liberals used to win.

With re-distribution, the riding has lost a slice in the west that Hawn had won comfortably in 2011. That makes holding the riding more difficult for the Conservatives than it otherwise would be, particularly as Hawn is not running for re-election.

Taking his place is James Cumming, a former head of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce and a local businessman. The Liberals have nominated Randy Boissonnault, a consultant and former journalist/commentator, while the New Democrats have landed the biggest name with the candidacy of Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

Going by the numbers, at least, the race would seem to be between McGowan and Boissonnault. At the moment, the projection very narrowly favours the Liberals, who are projected to take between 31.4% and 37.3% of the vote in the riding. McGowan is right in there with Boissonnault, though, with between 32.6% and 36.7% of the vote. Cumming is projected to take between 25.5% and 29.5% of the vote, while David Parker of the Greens (a retired engineer making his fifth run for the party) could take between 1.8% and 2.2% of the vote.

McGowan may have a much better chance than this, however. He has some name recognition and the party is doing well in Edmonton as a whole, whereas the Liberals have shown no particular strength in the city in the few regional polls done in the province. The provincial New Democrats won this part of the city handily, so that makes for a lot of voters with recent experience of voting NDP.

It would also be premature to write-off Cumming and the Conservatives. Theirs is still a potent brand in Alberta. But the party could suffer from not fielding an incumbent here.

So there a few interesting story lines in Edmonton Centre. Is this a seat the NDP can pick up to consolidate the stellar breakthrough of the provincial party in Alberta? Are the Liberals going to win some of the seats they used to win in the West in the past? Will Edmonton Centre be one of those ridings in Alberta in which the split to the left of them works in the Conservatives' favour?

There are a few ridings in Alberta that will be interesting to keep an eye on. Edmonton Centre is definitely one of them.

Riding to watch: Kenora

Throughout the campaign, I will be profiling some of the ridings to watch. Today's selection: the northwestern Ontario riding of Kenora.

Major Candidates

Conservative Party: Greg Rickford (incumbent)
New Democratic Party: Howard Hampton
Liberal Party: Bob Nault
Green Party: Ember McKillop

Though it was a comfortable win for the Conservatives in 2011, the riding of Kenora has been a close race in the past. It was a veritable three-way contest in 2004 and 2006, when the margin between the first and third place candidates were 8.3 and 6.6 points, respectively. The Liberals eked out wins in both cases, first against the NDP in 2004 and then against the Conservatives in 2006.

Greg Rickford won the riding from the Liberals' Roger Valley in 2008, and widened his advantage in the 2011 election. It that contest, Rickford captured 47% of the vote, with the NDP's Tania Cameron finishing second with 27.9% of the vote. The Liberals fell to third with just 21.9% of the vote, while the Greens came off a high of 4.7% in 2008 to drop to just 2.6%.

There was a big swing between the Liberals and the Conservatives between 2006 and 2011. The Liberals dropped just under 15 points, while the Conservatives picked up 16 points. Voters, then, seemingly moved directly from the Liberals to the Tories, by-passing the New Democrats.

Rickford won the southern portion of the huge riding in 2011, where most of the population lives. He won the polls in Kenora handily, as well as winning Dryden by a fair margin. Aside from a few individual polls here and there in the south, the Liberals and New Democrats only won the sparsely populated north. If either party is to have a chance to win the riding, they will need to make gains in Kenora itself.

All three parties are gunning for the riding. Rickford is the incumbent, and a cabinet minister to boot. When parliament dissolved, Rickford was the Minister of Natural Resources.

The New Democrats and Liberals have put forward strong candidates of their own. Most interesting is Howard Hampton's candidacy for the NDP.

Hampton has a long political history in the riding. He represented the provincial riding from 1987 through to 2011, serving as a cabinet minister in Bob Rae's government (as Attorney General and, later, as Minister of Natural Resources). He was also the leader who replaced Rae in 1996, leading the party through the 1999, 2003, and 2007 provincial elections. He had his best performance in that last vote, when his Ontario NDP captured 16.8% of the vote and 10 seats.

The Liberals are looking to their past as well, with former MP Bob Nault carrying the Liberal banner this time. Nault was the MP for the riding from 1988 to 2004, when he stepped down. Nault was a minister himself in Jean Chrétien's federal cabinet, occupying the post of Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development from 1999 to 2003.

The Greens are running Ember McKillop, a Dryden school teacher.

The current projection suggests this could be a very close riding, and potentially a three-way race as well. The NDP's Hampton is narrowly favoured with between 33.7% and 37.9% of the vote, which would represent his party's best result since the riding was created in 2004. Rickford is a close second with between 32.5% and 37.6% of the vote, which would be his party's worst performance since 2006, when the Tories took 31%.

The Liberals' Nault is projected to take between 23.9% and 28.4% based on current polling trends. This is an improvement over 2011's result, but well below Nault's and Valley's winning numbers in the past.

The Greens' McKillop is projected to take between 3.2% and 3.8% of the vote.

It is still early going, however. If the Liberals make some gains in Ontario, Nault could be quickly favoured in the projection. But a three-way race between three heavyweights can make for a very unpredictable outcome. The role of strategic voting could be significant: will voters currently splitting between Hampton and Nault go en masse to the party more likely to defeat the Conservatives? Or, if the NDP is leading nationwide, could the Liberals who voted for Rickford in the last few elections go back to the Conservatives to block the NDP? Keep an eye on Kenora.