Alberta is divided into 87 ridings, each with their own history, issues, and slate of candidates. But some races are expected to be more heated than others, and come election day will be closely watched political battlegrounds. As the clock ticks down to election day on April 16, we bring you our picks for ridings to watch.

CALGARY—A two-hour drive south of Calgary, a riding in the heart of conservative Alberta might hold the NDP’s sole hope of hanging on to any of its seats outside the province’s big cities.

Lethbridge, a city of nearly 100,000 people split into two ridings, is an island of orange in a part of the province virtually guaranteed to be a lock for the United Conservative Party.

In the 2015 provincial election, nearly all the other ridings in southern Alberta’s smaller or rural communities voted for the now-defunct Wildrose Party, with the exception of a narrow NDP win in Medicine Hat to the east.

But the riding of Lethbridge-West was a blowout. The NDP’s Shannon Phillips defeated incumbent Progressive Conservative Greg Weadick nearly three votes to one.

The chances of the NDP winning again in most of Alberta’s smaller or rural communities appears slim to none, and Lethbridge-West could test whether the party’s 2015 success has any staying power outside Edmonton and Calgary.

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But the 2019 election will be a very different battle.

The NDP’s Lethbridge-West win during the last vote was a “landslide,” as voters overwhelmingly rejected the ruling Tories, said Geoffrey Hale, a political science professor at the University of Lethbridge.

“But it was a ‘kick the bums out’ landslide. I don’t think that we are in 2015 territory,” he said.

Still, Lethbridge is something of an outlier in the southern Alberta political landscape. It’s a university town, and much more dominated by public sector employers than the corporate communities that would be more likely to be disillusioned by the current government.

As Hale explains it, Lethbridge is more of an “Edmonton demographic,” where the NDP swept the entire city four years ago, giving the government a better shot at holding Lethbridge seats than in the city’s neighbouring communities.

And Phillips’ 2015 success didn’t come out of nowhere. She previously ran in 2012 for the NDP and finished a surprising second — while she took nearly 5,000 votes, more than 4,000 ballots were also cast for the Wildrose Party, which handed the PCs a win with 5,810 votes.

“I think a lot of the frustrated voters who voted Wildrose in 2012 voted for Shannon Phillips the last time. Would they do that again? That’s a good question,” Hale said.

Phillips, who held the portfolio of minister of environment and parks, has become one of the most visible — and vilified — members of the NDP caucus. And she’ll be going up against UCP candidate Karri Flatla, a Lethbridge realtor who has had little political involvement up until now.

Also in the race are Liberal Pat Chizek and the Alberta Party’s Zac Rhodenizer.

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Phillips is a highly recognizable target for those who are dissatisfied with some of the government’s most contentious policies. She was next to Rachel Notley when she announced the NDP’s “climate leadership plan” in the months after the election, which included the introduction of a carbon tax.

“She’s a somewhat polarizing figure,” Hale said.

“This is where the broader divide in the community would come ... If you’re part of the various social and interest groups that identify with (the NDP’s) record, Ms. Phillips will be your candidate. If you don’t, the notion of voting for the candidate that will defeat her, whatever you think of individual parties, will be a higher priority.”

Hale said he saw Flatla campaign hard during the UCP’s nomination contest, and she has continued door-knocking since being confirmed as the party’s candidate — she won’t be an unknown face by the time voting day arrives.

Lethbridge is growing fast, especially in the west — according to the city’s 2018 census, that part of the city has added more than 3,000 people since 2015, bringing untested political ground to the riding. And Hale points to the crucial influence of the seniors’ vote in the riding: where their allegiances lie is still a question mark.

“There were a lot of people who just wanted a change (in 2015),” he said. “So how that plays out this time around, we’ll have to see.”

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