The 4 Ridings To Watch in The Prairies
April 26, 2025
Part 4 of this series, covering ridings to watch nationwide, covers the Prairies! From overwhelmingly Conservative Saskatchewan to competitive Manitoba, there are four ridings I’ll be keeping my eye on when polls close. Saskatchewan is the most Conservative province in the country, with it being CPC+38 in the last election, with all seats but one going for the party in the last election under the new boundaries, but under previous boundaries, all 14 seats voted blue (I’ll explain later). Manitoba, however, is a bit of a bellwether province, with the winner of the popular vote winning the province in the last six elections, but this election could break that streak. Liberals are up more than the Conservatives, but with the CPC also making gains, their margin has stayed similar to 2021.
The List
Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River
Elmwood-Transcona
Winnipeg Centre
Saskatoon West
Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River
Starting off in northern Saskatchewan, this riding was rejigged to closely match the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District. This riding went from being a mix of northern, indigenous, and Liberal Saskatchewan and the rural, white, and Conservative more Southern Saskatchewan. While this big mixed riding has elected non-Conservatives in the past, it’s still been overwhelmingly Conservative.
In the 2015 and 2019 elections, this seat would’ve gone NDP under the new boundaries (under the old riding boundaries, it did go NDP in 2015) and Liberal in 2021 and is projected to go Liberal here again. Buckley Belanger is well known in this part of the province, serving as the MLA since 1995, originally elected as a Liberal, the first Liberal win here since 1972. He then joined the NDP, re-running under a by-election and serving until resigning in 2021 to try and win this seat at the federal level.
He was unsuccessful in his run here, actually widening the margin against the victorious Conservatives with Gary Vidal. Vidal is not seeking re-election because he was drawn out of this riding, with the party not allowing an open nomination in this new seat. Belanger previously served as mayor of Île-à-la-Crosse before being elected to the legislature, a small town of about a thousand on the western side of the riding, winning 90% there in 2021. He’s running against Jim Lemaigre, representing the Conservatives, who won here in a shock upset in 2022 but lost in the 2024 general election. He defeated the former MP for this federal riding, Georgina Jolibois. Representing the NDP is Doug Racine, who ran in the provincial riding of Saskatchewan Rivers, underperforming nearby ridings, gaining less than 2% of the vote. This riding could go for any of the three parties running here, but the Liberals are heavily favoured. With such a new riding with heavy local characteristics that play around here, I’d consider this riding a tossup.
Elmwood-Transcona
Elmwood-Transcona, on the east side of Winnipeg, is a labour-centred riding. In a byelection last year, the NDP held it as the Blaikie dynasty ended and the Conservatives shot up in the polls. It was an impressive result for the new MP Leila Dance, holding it by over 4 points in such an unfavourable environment. It wasn’t necessarily expected to flip, with the last of my by-election trackers projecting an NDP win, but it was still a good boost to a demoralized party.
Singh has held rallies in both Elmwood and Transcona, with this riding being a target for the party, with the NDP campaign targeting its currently held seats, taking a note out of the ONDP playbook, but with a lack of similar expected results. The ONDP was nowhere near this far down in the polls, and they were able (and expected) to hold their seats while crashing everywhere else in the province. The federal NDP, on the other hand? Specific polls in certain regions indicate their support is consistently down everywhere, even in their incumbent ridings. The general election is a rematch among all the parties from the by-election, except for the PPC, and the result is expected to be similar, although closer with a higher Liberal result. If the NDP can hold this seat as it is currently projected, then the result could ultimately align with the ONDP result in general and in Oshawa, where they managed to go up in the vote share. If this seat goes Conservative, it’ll also not be that surprising, showing a continued shift in the support among unions and the working class. I also want to mention the Transcona by-election that happened a little over a month ago, the NDP expanded their margin which gives hope for the NDP holding this riding.
Winnipeg Centre
Elmwood-Transcona is just a short skip from Winnipeg Centre, and is a surprisingly close two-way race between the NDP and Liberals. This riding has had an NDP history since its creation, even previous labour and communist parties pre-CCF have done well here, despite the party’s surges and crashes. This election is expected to be the latter. The Liberals here are still expected to stay down after Robert-Falcon Ouellette’s exit from local politics federally; he was the MP from 2015 until his loss to Leah Gazan, one of the expected successors to Jagmeet Singh if a leadership race happens in the next term, both beloved locally here and among the general NDP base. Unless the NDP suffers a massive collapse, this riding is expected to hold for them.
Saskatoon West
The last riding on this short list brings us back to Saskatchewan, in the riding of Saskatoon West. Some interesting changes were proposed in the redistribution, with this riding being mashed into Saskatoon Centre, which would follow Circle Drive almost all the way around. If this riding existed in 2021, it would’ve actually gone NDP by 7% in 2021 and by a couple of hundred votes in 2019, which would’ve cost the Conservatives another seat in their safest province under redistribution. Ultimately, this received massive backlash among Conservatives and was reversed, and the riding stayed as Conservative voting Saskatoon West. This riding has been competitive between the CPC and NDP in the last few elections, but it seems the NDP’s grip over it is beginning to slip. A poll of just Saskatoon, along with the urban poll breaking I do for my model, had this city’s overall polling average at 28-47-22 (L-C-N), which turns out to be a 12-point drop for the NDP, 1 point for the CPC, and a gain of 16 points for the Liberals. The NDP has been trying to target this seat and is hoping to win, but the model suggests their true goal is keeping second place here. Singh has visited this riding twice in this campaign, and Poilievre has been rounding out his campaign by having a rally here too, which could show that the party is teetering on a loss in a seat in the city. Ultimately, in the model, this riding is expected to go to incumbent Brad Redekopp against Dipper Rachel Loewen Walker, a professor at USask. With no PPC candidate, this riding isn’t expected to be very competitive.
Thank you for reading this (very) short list on ridings to watch in Saskatchewan and Manitoba! Feel free to share and subscribe to continue supporting my work and so you don’t miss out on future articles: