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—With limited campaign funds, waning public support, and an untested leader, the Alberta Liberals face overwhelming odds heading into the provincial election.

But from his campaign office in Calgary’s Crescent Heights neighbourhood recently, leader David Khan remained confident he can defend the Liberals’ lone stronghold in the Calgary-Mountain View riding. Khan hopes this constituency will be ground zero for a resurgent Liberal Party that can be a viable, progressive alternative for Alberta voters.

“This is a Liberal riding, it’s a four-term Liberal riding,” Khan said.

“The residents of Calgary-Mountain View want strong liberal representation and want the leader to represent them in the legislature.”

Khan faces high-profile opposition in this riding, but that competition was shaken up the day of the writ drop by candidate Caylan Ford’s resignation from the United Conservative Party after messages surfaced from August 2017 of her saying she is “somewhat saddened by the demographic replacement of white peoples in their homelands.”

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In a Facebook post, Ford said these comments aren’t reflective of her views, but announced she was dropping out of the race to “avoid becoming a distraction in this campaign.”

Ford is a former senior policy adviser for Global Affairs Canada who was lured into Alberta politics by UCP Leader Jason Kenney. Before her resignation, she had been accused by members of the UCP Calgary-Mountain View board of deliberately misleading the party over her residency to circumvent nomination rules.

Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, said she thought Ford had a strong chance to win the riding if the Liberal Party and NDP split the centre-left vote.

But Williams said the race has become less predictable now with Ford’s departure, and that the reasons for her resignation could significantly damage the UCP’s chances in Calgary-Mountain View.

“This highlights the problems the UCP is having: top-down leadership, ethics, integrity, and intolerant views. That’s a pretty deadly combination, particularly in a riding that’s been centre-left,” Williams said.

On Wednesday night, Jeremy Wong was named the new UCP candidate in Calgary-Mountain View. Wong ran in a nomination contest in this riding last year, finishing behind Ford in December. While not as highly touted a candidate as Ford, Wong has been active in his community for years as a pastor at the Calgary Chinese Alliance Church.

But on Friday, the NDP called Wong “misogynistic” for saying “wives should submit to their husbands” in a sermon. In the same sermon, he also said men are “more cerebral” than women.

The UCP defended Wong in a statement, saying the former sentiment comes directly from the Bible.

Even with Ford’s departure, there isn’t a clear favourite in Calgary-Mountain View. Khan is still set to run against high-profile candidates, like the NDP’s Kathleen Ganley, justice minister in Rachel Notley’s cabinet, who switched ridings after the redrawing of electoral boundaries eliminated the district held by Finance Minister Joe Ceci.

Calgary-Mountain View voters have shifted allegiances between the Social Credit, Progressive Conservatives, and Liberals since 1971 when the inner-city riding was established. But the Liberals have held the district, which borders the north shore of the Bow River roughly between Deerfoot Tr. and Crowchild Tr., since 2004, when the party won 16 seats and formed the official Opposition.

That was then.

The past 15 years have been unkind as the party struggled with internal divisions, the loss of marquee MLAs, shrinking campaign contributions, and relevance as the NDP and Alberta Party gained traction among the electorate.

In the 2015 election, the Liberals were reduced to one seat in Calgary-Mountain View, had no meaningful presence in rural ridings, and languished in single-digit territory according to most polls.

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Further, the party is hobbled with the Liberal brand, which has always been a tough sell in Alberta where many voters remain bitter about the impact former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program had on Alberta’s energy industry in the early 1980s.

“The anti-Liberal sentiment right now is nearly as bad as it was when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister,” Williams said, adding the Alberta Liberals’ internal issues have contributed to the party’s demise.

“They didn’t have a unified message. They didn’t seem to be out there in an effective way,” Williams said. “That’s a very significant component of their challenges.”

Now the party finds itself heading into this campaign without its strongest asset, David Swann, who is retiring after representing Calgary-Mountain View over the past 15 years, and under a relatively untested leader who suffered two recent electoral defeats and faces a tough race in the riding.

Khan, a lawyer who practises Indigenous law, placed third in both the 2015 provincial election in Calgary-Buffalo behind the NDP’s Ganley and the 2017 byelection in Calgary-Lougheed, well behind Kenney.

Former Global Calgary and 770 CHQR radio talk show host Angela Kokott is running for the Alberta Party, which has pulled ahead of the Liberals in recent public polls and fundraising.

Thana Boonlert is running for the Green Party of Alberta.

Khan maintains the Liberals can differentiate themselves from the Alberta Party and the New Democrats and capture progressive voters who are disappointed with both of those parties.

“The last election was a snapshot in time,” said Khan. “The NDP had between zero and four MLAs over the last 25 years. We’ve had between one and 33. And the long-governing PC party has been shut down after nearly losing all of their seats after governing for 44 years.

“There’s variability between elections. Campaigns matter and leadership matters.”

Ridings to Watch:

United Conservatives’ hand-picked candidate faces tough race to represent Edmonton-Meadows

Lethbridge-West may be NDP’s best hope of a riding outside the big cities

Boundary changes bring more Indigenous voters into new Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul riding

United Conservatives’ hand-picked candidate faces tough race to represent Edmonton-Meadows

Fledgling party, new riding, United Conservative challenger: Derek Fildebrandt has his hands full in Chestermere-Strathmore race

It will be a battle for every vote in Lesser Slave Lake, with the lowest population of any riding

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