There may be some real surprises on election night

It's just a few days now until E-Day (that's Election Day not EBay) and there's still lots of guessing left in this game.
I won't make a final prediction here. Look for my calls on various ridings in my blog on mjtimes.sk.ca. However, I can still give you an idea of how things look to be shaping up.
There's still dozens of ridings in this country that are up in the air.
We just happen to be in one of those ridings. As polls and other indications have shown, this is a two-way race, as it has been for decades, between the Conservatives and the NDP.
A recent poll shows a lead for Tory Ray Boughen over New Democrat Don Mitchell. However, the poll also showed a large undecided that could help tip the scales for Mitchell. But he will need a large chunk of that undecided, along with some Liberal and Green help, to thwart Boughen. This will be a tough one to call.
What isn't tough is to see who is going to win the election overall - the Conservatives and Stephen Harper. What is tough to determine is how strong that victory will be.
Earlier in this campaign, it looked like Harper was in majority country. But barring any major shifts over the final weekend (which could happen, see 2004) it's likely he'll be left with another minority.
He needs to win at least 30 new seats (because he will lose a couple he had going into the election). That's probably too tough a hill to climb.
But that's not nearly as tough as the hill Stephane Dion and his Liberals have to climb. Dion should dance in the streets of Montreal if his party winds up with 103, the total number it had at the end of the last election. It's more likely the Grits will lose some ground and be further away from the Tories.
As for the NDP, it could be a record-setting night or it could be the night strategic voters across the nation conspired to knock Jack Layton back to the mid-1970s (16 seats for the NDP in 1974).
The all-time NDP record for seats is 44 and that's possible. Heck, the magic number of 50 and a return to Alberta are also possible targets. But a slight shift to the Liberals could cause those numbers to plummet, considering the fact the party won a number of seats by close margins two years ago.
As for the Bloc, it looks like it will keep steady after poll figures earlier in the campaign indicated a sharp decline. It's possible the Bloc may even recoup some of the seats it lost to the Tories in 2006.
And then there's the Green party. It's possible the Green party could hit the magic number of 10 per cent of the vote - and still have nothing to show for it.
There are really only four ridings in the country where the Greens have a shot at winning, and I wouldn't say the party is the frontrunner in any of them.
First, there's the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, where Green party Leader Elizabeth May is running. May is running a solid campaign and the lack of a Liberal candidate helps. However, she's running against the very popular Conservative deputy leader, Peter MacKay. She'll give him a run for his money but it will be tough for her to win.
The other ridings are: Guelph, Ont., where Green candidate Mike Nagy was running second in polling; Saanich-Gulf Islands in B.C., where the lack of an NDP candidate and a strong Green candidate, Andrew Lewis, who scored more than 6,000 votes in 2006, give the party a good shot; and Vancouver Centre, where former B.C. Green leader Adriane Carr is in a serious four-way race with three solid candidates from the three other major parties. If the Greens make a breakthrough, it'll likely come from these four.
So that's it for now. Watch my blog and get ready for an interesting electoral finish.

Jason Small can be reached at 691-1255.