It is widely believed that all 28 ridings in Alberta will go to the Conservatives, but there are two ridings that might switch to a different couleur.

The first one is Calgary Northeast. This riding, which used to belong to Art Hanger, who is retiring from politics, is the scene of conservative infighting between the official Conservative candidate, Devinder Shory, and an independent conservative contender, Roger Richard. The battle between them has been anything but benign, with injunctions and other legal threats being traded liberally.

This could result in the same split of the vote on the right in this riding that was also instrumental in allowing the Liberals three majority governments under Jean Chrétien when the right was divided into Tories and Reform.

It’s a story as old as time: when two are engaged in battle like this, it is usually a third that comes up the middle and takes the prize – in this case, Liberal candidate Sanam Kang, for example. But the riding may also go to the Green Party candidate or the NDP. The only thing that the two conservative candidates have going for them is that the candidates of the other parties don’t seem too capable or promising, which may limit voters’ choices to Shory and Richard.

The other riding that warrants close attention is Edmonton-Strathcona. Here, the Tory incumbent is facing off against a strong NDP candidate, Linda Duncan. Duncan has enjoyed great momentum, as documented by Liberals4Linda, a blog of Liberals who have decided to endorse and vote for Duncan.

There is no real threat to Conservatives in any of the other 26 ridings, which will be won by the Conservatives by five-digit margins – as usual – including, unfortunately, Calgary West, where the always-absent and abrasive Conservative incumbent should have been removed from office a long time ago. So, in Calgary West, people’s hopes are that Jennifer Pollock can pull it off and restore democracy in the riding at long last.