Now that the debates are behind us, it’s more obvious than ever that there is a universe between Harper and the rest of our party leaders. Don’t get me started.

But if you came from a different planet to watch on Tuesday night and were asked to place Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe along a political spectrum, you’d be hard-pressed to figure out who is the most mainstream and who the edgiest. And that’s true even if you add in Elizabeth May, who should have been there. Interestingly, even Stephen Harper decided to put his left foot forward; turns out he’s passionate about gun control, criminal rehabilitation and clean energy. Who knew?

How is it that we’ve never had a more right-wing government, yet our politicians play to the left when trying to win our hearts? Says something about us all, don’t you think?

So now the horse race begins in earnest. The most committed voters are the Conservatives’ supporters. An estimated 800,000-plus Liberal voters stayed home last time, and so did droves of young potential voters. It’s the perfect time to start watching how the key Toronto races are shaping up. Here are the ones to keep an eye on.

Trinity-Spadina

Incumbent NDPer
Olivia Chow
Main challenger Liberal
Christine Innes

The Skinny: Olivia Chow’s political feistiness is legend, and she has deep personal and political roots in this riding, where her career as a city councillor began in 1991. But the Tony Ianno factor has been a stubborn fixture. It took two tries before Chow wrestled this turf from Liberal Ianno back in 2006. Then his wife and current Liberal protagonist Christine Innes took up the mantle. Troublesome for Chow this time is that the Liberals are showing better in the polls than they did in 2008. Condo development is also affecting the riding’s demographics. These factors could chew through Chow’s 3,000-plus-vote margin from last time. But her coin in the ‘hood is riding high. For one thing, she pushed the Conservatives into giving store owners the right to make citizen arrests, understandably a popular move in Chinatown.

Davenport

Incumbent Liberal
Mario Silva
Main challenger NDPer
Andrew Cash

The Skinny: This is a true come-from-behind race, and if anyone can do it, it’s NDP star candidate (and NOW writer) Andrew Cash. As a Cash Brother and on his own, he holds a serious place of honour in the indie music scene. Cash is really too talented to be a politician and he’s got the campaign workers to prove it. But the competition here is stiff. This riding has voted Lib since 1962. Former city councillor Mario Silva was first elected in 2004. In 2008, he defeated NDPer Peter Ferreira by 5,000-plus votes, and before that he crushed Gord Perks. Ouch. This is a riding that should be ripe for the NDP — it’s not all gentrified. The results will say a lot about whether the Grits continue to hold sway with their immigrant base.

Parkdale-High Park

Incumbent
Gerard Kennedy
Main challenger NDPer
Peggy Nash

The Skinny: They like their politics progressive in Parkdale-High Park, that’s for sure. Popular and respected former NDP incumbent Peggy Nash losing her seat to Gerard Kennedy by a fat 3,000 votes in 2008 was one of the NDP’s real heartbreaks. A battle between two grassroots campaigners with progressive cred seemed like a waste. Even though the Liberals held the riding for a long time before Nash grabbed it, Kennedy’s victory was extra-surprising because the Dion factor was otherwise sinking Lib campaigns across the country. Logic would say Kennedy is sitting pretty. But logic isn’t everything. Since he left for Ottawa, it’s said that Kennedy hasn’t been seen much. Nash is a long shot, but don’t underestimate the deep community roots she’s been tending since her first run in 2004.

Eglinton-Lawrence

Incumbent Liberal
Joe Volpe
Main challenger Conservative
Joe Oliver

The Skinny: Volpe has held this riding, considered the most vulnerable Liberal seat in Toronto, since 1988. Yikes. Not necessarily a bad thing, except Volpe is one of those Grits who hasn’t exactly distinguished himself in his 20-plus years on the Hill. He’s won by huge numbers in the past, thanks to Jewish support east of Bathurst and Italian support in Downsview, but he faced his stiffest challenge yet in 2008, besting Oliver by little more than 2,000 votes. (He’d cruised to a better than 12,000-vote victory in 2006.) Oliver’s back for a rematch and winning the sign wars so far in the riding’s tonier neighbourhoods. The race got nasty in ’08 after flyers questioning Liberal party support for Israel found their way onto doorsteps.

Don Valley West

Incumbent Liberal
Rob Oliphant
Main challenger Conservative
John Carmichael

The Skinny: This is the riding the Tories think they have the best chance of winning. The big guns have already been out campaigning with Carmichael, among them Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. This riding has Tory roots that go back to former House Speaker John Bosley. Carmichael, a former auto exec, has distinguished himself from other Conservative candidates by not putting the PM front and centre in his campaign. But the loser label may be a problem for Carmichael, who’s running for a fourth time here. He fell some 2,000 votes short in 2008 to Oliphant, a United Church minister who made an impressive showing last time.

York Centre

Incumbent Liberal
Ken Dryden
Main challenger Conservative
Mark Adler

The skinny: The Conservatives are hoping to capitalize on anti-Liberal sentiment among Jewish voters here, but it will be a tough slog. The party ran former B’nai Brith president Rochelle Wilner against Dryden in 2008, making an issue of the Liberal Party’s position on Israel and voting record at the UN while in government. The strategy almost worked, with Wilner losing by little more than 2,000 votes. Ignatieff’s past pronouncements on the Israel-Palestinian conflict may hurt this time out. The X factor here, though, is Dryden’s personal popularity. He’s got oodles of it. Adler, who is president and CEO of the Economic Club of Canada, boasts big biz connections and has been knocking on doors for the last 10 months.

Willowdale

Incumbent Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay
Main challenger Conservative
Chungsen Leung

The skinny: This riding, which used to be held by Jim Peterson, former Ontario premier David Peterson’s older brother, has a history of swinging back and forth between Conservatives and Libs federally. Hall Findlay, a former Liberal leadership candidate, won rather handily in 2008, first in a by-election and later in the general election. She’s the closest thing to a bellwether Toronto has. If Liberal dominoes start to fall, Hall Findlay may be vulnerable, given her more leftist sensibility in a riding with 905-ish leanings. Leung, who manages a disaster relief company, is banking on a local base and the riding’s sizable Asian population. His substantial business ties also lie further north, in Markham and Richmond Hill.

Etobicoke North

Incumbent Liberal
Kirsty Duncan
Main challenger Conservative
Priti Lamba

The skinny: The Ford factor — as in Mayor Rob Ford and big brother Doug, the area councillor — looms large here. Duncan won handily in 2008 against Conservative Bob Saroya. Etobicoke North is among the most diverse ridings in the country, and Duncan has been working the multicult vote hard. In ’08, Duncan surprised many by winning almost 50 per cent of the ballots cast, despite a lower than usual Lib voter turnout. Doug Ford and Vincent Crisanti, the other councillor representing Etobicoke North, have been spotted at events with Lamba, and Julian Fantino, the MP for Vaughan, has leant his mug to her cause.

This article was first published in NOW Magazine.