Brandon-Souris
Tory MP Merv Tweed represents a riding that has gone Tory since the Korean War. Nothing suggests that trend will change Tuesday.
Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia
This riding has been one to watch in the past, but not this year. Although the Liberals made a fuss over candidate Bob Friesen, the former president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Tory MP Steven Fletcher appears to be pretty safe.
Churchill
Liberal MP and actress Tina Keeper took the northern seat last time, thanks to a vote-split by the NDP and an independent candidate who had been the NDP MP for the riding until just before the election. This time, New Democrat Niki Ashton wants to win it back, and she's been working for months. Both women have enjoyed high-profile visits from party leaders past and present. The numbers say Ashton might squeak out a win, but much depends on voter turnout in the North's many First Nations communities.
Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette
Tory MP Inky Mark marches to the tune of his own drummer, bucking his party regularly. But his personal popularity and the popularity of his party will almost certainly propel him to a fifth term.
Elmwood-Transcona
One of two ridings in Manitoba without an incumbent MP on the ballot after the NDP's Bill Blaikie stepped aside. Blaikie owned this seat since 1979. Without him, it has become one of the most-watched ridings. Former Winnipeg Jet Thomas Steen is facing off against longtime provincial NDP backbencher Jim Maloway. The Conservatives have kept Steen, a political rookie, largely out of the public eye while Maloway has hammered away at the Disraeli Bridge closing as his wedge issue. Both sides say the race is a tight one.
Kildonan-St. Paul
This riding got national scrutiny when Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes was punted from her party for an old column about the Sept. 11 attacks. Her campaign effectively shut down. Some say that hands a re-election victory to Tory MP Joy Smith. Others say the NDP could siphon off Liberal votes and steal the riding.
Portage-Lisgar
Tory candidate Candice Hoeppner will almost certainly take this south-central Manitoba seat, the safest Conservative seat outside Alberta. She's been campaigning hard against a strong roster of local candidates.
Provencher
This riding is about as Tory as you can get. Former Reform/Alliance-turned-Conservative MP Vic Toews will easily win here despite some fears that issues in his personal life might turn off voters in this Bible Belt riding. His margin of victory in 2006 topped 19,000 votes.
St. Boniface
It is the most French riding in Western Canada, and the only riding west of Ontario that regularly sends francophones to the House of Commons.
It is also generally a safe Liberal seat, but not this time. The Tories have been creeping up here over the last few elections and this time are finally putting up a francophone and well-known candidate in Winnipeg police officer Shelly Glover.
Liberal MP Ray Simard won by just more than 1,500 votes in 2006 and Glover has been campaigning non-stop since she announced her candidacy two years ago.
Simard might get some help from a less enthusiastic NDP campaign here, but it's unclear whether the late campaign improvements for his party nationally will trickle down to his name on the ballot. Look to this race to be the real nail-biter on election night.
Selkirk-Interlake
It's not exactly a Conservative safe seat and MP James Bezan hasn't been the most active of Manitoba MPs in Ottawa, but regardless, Bezan isn't going anywhere but back to Ottawa after Oct. 14. If former premier and governor general Ed Schreyer couldn't defeat Bezan in 2006, don't expect candidates with lesser-known names to be able to do it this time.
Winnipeg Centre
NDP MP Pat Martin himself has acknowledged Liberal Dan Hurley has been a good candidate but Martin will still prevail in Winnipeg Centre.
Winnipeg North
The only name you really need to know here is Judy Wasylycia-Leis. She is the NDP MP and will get re-elected for the fifth time.
Winnipeg South
In 2006, Conservative Rod Bruinooge's defeat of Liberal cabinet minister Reg Alcock was one of the great surprises of the entire election. It was the second-closest finish in the country. Bruinooge was rewarded with a parliamentary secretary position as aide to the Indian Affairs minister, giving him some valuable face time, including last spring during the residential schools apology. Liberal John Loewen is going to put up a good fight. Loewen is a former Tory MLA whose biggest claim to fame in the Manitoba legislature was identifying problems with the Crocus Investment Fund more than two years before the fund was forced to stop trading in 2004. Bruinooge will be tough to beat, but with a late campaign resurgence for the Liberals, the result here is anything but a foregone conclusion.
Winnipeg South Centre
It is perhaps the safest Liberal seat in Western Canada, having stayed with the Liberals even in 1984, the only seat west of the Ontario border the Liberals won in that election.
But the Liberal margin of victory has been falling. In 1997, then-Liberal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy won by more than 14,000 votes. Anita Neville, the MP here since 2000, won by 7,617 in 2004 and then 3,219 in 2006. One poll in 2006 suggested the Conservatives were giving Neville a strong challenge, but she pulled out a victory.
This time, the Conservatives are throwing time, money and a star candidate in former Winnipeg Blue Bomber Trevor Kennerd at the riding, hoping to surge past Neville.
But Kennerd's socially conservative politics, including an anti-abortion stance, and a lacklustre campaign by the NDP could serve to keep Neville's job intact. Still, it's one riding to watch. Neville might be the last Liberal to go down or she might be the last Liberal left standing in Manitoba.
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