There are 80 vulnerable ridings and although elections are won riding by riding, experts say the national campaign is more important to turning these close ridings than the local one is.
"I very much feel that way. Local constituency factors, and there's been work by Munroe Eagles from the University of Buffalo suggesting that local constituency factors count for no more than five per cent and some ridings are within that margin, so it's not to say it's not a factor anywhere, but it's just not a huge factor and it will only affect a relatively modest number of seats I think," said Wilfrid Laurier University political science professor Barry Kay.
He told The Hill Times that any ridings won with less than about six or seven per cent of the vote is an unsafe riding.
Any ridings won with 10 per cent or less can be considered vulnerable ridings, as they range from losing the vote by 2,500 votes at a nine per cent margin, for example, where Conservative Jean-Maurice won in Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Que., or by 3,800 votes at a 6.6 per cent margin won by Liberal Peter Milliken in Kingston and the Islands, Ont., in the 2008 election.
Every vote matters in these types of ridings, but University of Toronto professor Nelson Wiseman said depending on how the national leaders do, it could also affect the local outcome.
"The problem with saying, 'Oh no, it's all about the individual ridings,' is that you assume that you're going to hold onto all of your ridings. That's a good assumption where the Conservatives are sitting right now, but if they drop to 36 per cent, well, it's not a good assumption. You're going to lose some of those seats," he said.
When asked what can help a party turn the seat, Prof. Wiseman said: "Put in outside resources into the riding. You've got to get the local media there onside early. The community newspapers. If there's a big ethnic vote, of course they're pivotal. Your national campaign has to be biting. It has to be getting numbers above what that party got nationally last time. The local candidate doesn't count for very much."
Carleton University journalism associate professor Paul Adams said last week that all parties will be looking to regain seats they lost in the last election, or focus on ridings where they came in second place.
In some ridings, such as Welland, Ont., currently held by NDP MP Malcom Allen, who's running for re-election, there are three-way races.
"In a multi-party race, depending on vote splits, anyone can come up the middle," Prof. Adams said.
Although there has been nearly daily polling on national vote intentions, Profs. Adams and Kay said that it's still too early to say where parties can pick up more or lose seats.
Prof. Kay, a board member of the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy which studies polling data and has been making seat projections for the last several election campaigns, said that while the Conservatives are "sliding a little bit in Ontario," it's not clear if the Liberals will gain anything. He said looking at all the recent polls, in Ontario, the Conservatives have a seven-point lead over the Liberals, a three-point drop, but compared to the 2008 election, they're still 1.5 per cent above.
"What that suggests is you might add a point or so to where the Conservatives were last time, but anything within six or seven points I don't think is a safe riding," he said. "If our reference point is compared to 2008, it's a stretch probably to find very many Liberal pickups anywhere at the moment, but there were a lot of seats that were close."
Prof. Adams said if the Liberals are going to gain seats, it will be in Ontario but he agreed that there is not enough polling data to say where they could pick up some ridings.
"I think there's potential ... but at this point we haven't seen enough movement in Ontario to expect that the Liberals will do much better than they did last time," he said.
A Forum Research poll conducted exclusively for The Hill Times last week found Conservative support at 38 per cent nationally, down from 41 per cent in a poll the firm conducted March 26 and 27, the first two days of the campaign. The Liberals had support from 26 per cent of voters, up from 24 per cent at the start, with the NDP up slightly to 20 per cent from 19 per cent. The survey, completed April 5-6 with 2,000 people with a margin of error of 2.2 per cent 19 times out of 20, with slightly less reliability in regional and local breakdowns, found the Conservatives with 42 per cent support in Ontario, compared to 33 per cent for the Liberals and 17 per cent for the NDP.
Whether the Liberals will be able to recapture two Ontario ridings the party lost by a handful in 2008 will signal a bellwether for the party.
Kitchener Centre and Kitchener-Waterloo both went to Conservative candidates in the last election. Stephen Woodworth and Peter Braid won their seats by 339 and 17 votes, respectively.
"Kitchener-Waterloo and Kitchener Centre are fairly diverse in terms of income, but really it's a middle class, upper-middle-class, highly educated area [...] so I think the Liberals will have to pick those seats up if they hope to make gains in Ontario," said Abacus Data CEO David Coletto.
Mr. Coletto noted that there are not really ripe regions for the Liberals to snap up support in this election.
In fact, the Liberals may also be on the defensive in a traditional area of support, he said, noting long-time Liberal MP Joe Volpe's Eglinton-Lawrence riding and Ken Dryden's York Centre riding could be in trouble in this election. He said the Conservatives have nominated strong local candidates in both ridings who are organizing "quite strongly" in the Jewish community.
Just outside of Toronto, the 905-area riding of Ajax-Pickering is sure to be a battle, said Pundit's Guide's Alice Funke.
"I do think that one will be tight, and you can tell because they've nominated very high-quality candidates," she said of Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland and former ambassador Christopher Alexander, the Conservative candidate.
In 2008, Mr. Holland beat out Conservative candidate Rick Johnson 44.53 per cent to 37.95 per cent.
For the Conservatives, they will need to keep all 144 seats they currently hold and gain 12 more for their coveted majority.
Especially now that Conservative voters in Newfoundland have been given the all-clear with Liberal Premier Kathy Dunderdale's endorsement of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to guarantee loans for the Lower Churchill hydro project, the Conservatives have a good chance of picking up three seats in Newfoundland and Labrador out of the 12 they need, Mr. Coletto said.
Even before the promise and the election call, a provincial poll had the Liberals and Conservatives statistically tied in the province, he noted.
Last time around, with former Progressive Conservative premier Danny Williams' 'Anything But Conservative' campaign, the party was shut out of the province.
"Conservative voters overwhelmingly just stayed home. It's not like they voted for other parties, the turnout plummeted in Newfoundland," said Mr. Colletto.
Ms. Funke agreed, saying: "Newfoundland is the perfect example where last election's results are completely the wrong starting point" for determining future results. She said that, generally speaking, if a race is close in one election, that doesn't necessarily indicate it will be close in the next.
Instead, politicos should examine more human factors, such as candidate strength, riding history and organization, and current local issues, she said.
While only one Newfoundland riding was won by 10 per cent or less in the last election, incumbent Liberal candidate Siobhan Coady's St. John's South-Mount Pearl, Prof. Kay said the Conservatives generally do well in the Avalon peninsula so these seats could also be in play for them.
Mr. Coletto noted that an incumbent MP usually represents a three to seven per cent advantage in the polls.
In a riding like Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, where retiring Liberal incumbent Keith Martin won by just 68 votes in 2008, that could be a deal-breaker.
Further complicating the situation, Mr. Martin has also represented the riding as a Reform, independent, Conservative and Canadian Alliance member before moving to the Liberals.
While a lot of more right-wing support may have moved to the Grits to follow Mr. Martin, that doesn't mean the Liberals, who are represented by Lillian Szpak, will necessarily lose the seat, said Éric Grenier, who runs the poll-aggregating website threehundredeight.blogspot.com and who writes a column for The Hill Times.
"For several elections now people have gotten used to voting Liberal so maybe they will continue to vote Liberal. But that will probably be one of the most difficult ones to keep when it comes to incumbent MPs who have retired, because of his history with the other parties," he explained.
Ms. Funke is more skeptical of the Liberals' chances in that riding.
"I am reasonably confident in saying that it is now morphing into a two-way race between [Conservative] Troy De Souza, who is a prosecutor, and [NDP] Randall Garrison," who is a professor local city councilor, she said.
She also pointed out that before Mr. Martin, the NDP voted NDP in 1988 when they elected former premier Dave Barrett.
In British Columbia, Ms. Funke said that while most of the remaining Reform Party cohort have retired recently, leaving an opening for change in many seats, she does not predict any major Conservative upsets in the four seats left open by retirements. Treasury Board President Stockwell Day is not running for re-election in Okanagan-Coquihalla; Transport Minister Chuck Strahl is not running for re-election in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon; Jim Abbott is not running for re-election in Kootenay-Columbia; and former government House leader Jay Hill resigned his seat in Prince-George-Peace River.
The NDP in British Columbia will be concerned with holding Burnaby-Douglas, former seat of retired MP Bill Siksay, who won the riding with 37.94 per cent of the vote, compared to 36.25 per cent for Conservative candidate Ronald Leung. Mr. Leung is currently running for the party against Liberal Ken Lowe and NDP Kennedy Stewart.
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