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If you're wondering which will be the interesting local election fights in Toronto and the wider GTA on Tuesday night, here's the ones some partisan and non-partisan politicos will be watching.

Trinity-Spadina

This is a two-way battle between NDP incumbent Olivia Chow and Liberal challenger Christine Innes -- the life partner of Tony Ianno, the former Liberal MP whom Chow defeated in 2006 after three tries.

Campaign workers for the two sides say this riding has always been a pitched fight.

Councillor Adam Vaughn, who represents downtown ward 23, said the Tory recovery suggested in Friday's poll means the pressure to vote strategically might subside.

Strategic voting pressure "is something Trinity-Spadina has been subject to in the past, and so it's possible again in the future, although in the past it's always happened with a Liberal incumbent," he told ctvtoronto.ca on Friday.

If people don't feel pressured to vote Liberal to stop a Conservative government, that will help Chow and her Toronto NDP neighbour Peggy Nash keep their ridings, he said.

However, he doesn't think Chow's campaign has been firing on all cylinders.

The Chow people shouldn't underestimate Innes, who has worked behind the scenes on many campaigns in the past, Vaughn said.

The latest campaign literature of both candidates calls on people to support them to "stop Stephen Harper."

Parkdale-High Park

Nash took Parkdale-High Park away from the Liberals in 2006, defeating Liberal incumbent Sarmite Bulte.

Gerard Kennedy, an ally of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and former provincial education minister, hopes to retake the riding for the Liberals.

However, he faces a tough opponent in Nash. Provincially, popular NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo now represents the riding.

Vaughn said while it wouldn't surprise him if both Nash and Chow won, he would be more surprised to see Nash go down to defeat than Chow (note: Vaughn replaced Chow on council when she went into federal politics).

Beaches-East York

The NDP won this area provincially in 2007. But in 2006, Liberal and one-time cabinet minister Maria Minna fended off a challenge from former NDP MPP Marilyn Churley, who is running again this time.

Peter Tabuns, the NDP MPP for the area, didn't respond to a ctvtoronto.ca email question about whether he thought the federal riding would change hands on Oct. 14.

Sandra Bussin, a city councillor in the area, also didn't respond to a similar email question.

Rosemary Thompson, CTV's deputy Ottawa bureau chief who has been travelling with the NDP this week, told ctvtoronto. ca that the NDP has hopes for Beaches-East York, Davenport and Oshawa -- in addition to keeping Trinity-Spadina, Parkdale-High Park and Toronto-Danforth, NDP Leader Jack Layton's riding.

Davenport

The NDP did finish second here in 2006, but NDP challenger Gord Perks finished almost 7,500 votes behind Liberal Mario Silva.

Perks, now a Toronto city councillor, didn't respond to a ctvtoronto.ca email on whether he thought the riding would change hands this time.

The riding has been Liberal since 1962.

Peter Ferreira, an unsuccessful provincial candidate in 2007, is the NDP's candidate this time. Like Silva, he is of Portuguese descent.

Etobicoke-Lakeshore

Michael Ignatieff, who came second to Dion in the Liberal leadership race, won this riding in 2006. However, he still lives in tony Yorkville -- which Ignatieff describes as a 15-minute subway ride from his political home.

In 2006, Ignatieff bested his Conservative rival by about 6,000 votes.

Patrick Boyer represented the area for the Progressive Conservatives from 1984 to 1993 and is attempting to make a political comeback.

Rob Ford, councillor for Etobicoke North, is a card-carrying Conservative. While not confident his party will win a Toronto seat, he thinks the Tories might have a chance in Etobicoke Centre or Etobicoke Lakeshore.

"Boyer's very, very popular," he told ctvtoronto.ca. "I've talked to a lot of people who like him because he's a local homeboy and he did a good job before."

Etobicoke Centre

City councillor Suzanne Hall thinks the Liberals will hold her federal riding of Etobicoke-North, but she'll be looking with interest at the race in Etobicoke-Centre.

Liberal incumbent Borys Wrzesnewskyj took over from former cabinet minister Allan Rock.

Wrzesnewskyj is going against Conservative Axel Kuhn again. In 2006, Wrzesnewskyj took more than 50 per cent of the vote, but late polling (albeit with a small sample) has Liberal support in Toronto down about 12 points from 2006, when Liberal candidates captured 51 per cent of the vote.

As a show of the nastiness there, a judge issued an order Monday directing Kuhn to stop printing and distributing a pamphlet that contained defamatory claims about Wrzesnewskyj.

The riding has gone Tory in the past. Progressive Conservative Michael Wilson, finance minister in the Mulroney era, had represented the riding from 1979 to 1993.

Ford thought the best shot for the Conservatives lies in Don Valley West.

Don Valley West

Popular Liberal MP John Godfrey represented this central suburban riding for 15 years, finally retiring this year.

Liberal candidate and United Church minister Rob Oliphant is squaring off against John Carmichael, a car dealer who captured about one-third of the vote in his 2006 bid.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne represents the area provincially, defeating provincial Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory in 2007. As a Liberal, she thinks the Liberals will hold the riding after Tuesday's vote.

"With no bias whatsoever!" she joked to ctvtoronto.ca on Friday. "But you know what, I've been out a fair bit ... and I think it's going to stay Liberal."

However, there is a sizable bloc of Conservative support in the centre of the riding.

"I didn't say it's not going to be tight," Wynne said.

Local candidates have talked about relevant issues like immigration and infrastructure, she said.

GTA ridings

Oshawa

Ed Broadbent made an appearance in Toronto on Friday, partly to balance off an appearance by former Liberal Leader Jean Chretien at a rally in Brampton later that day.

There is talk Broadbent will appear in Oshawa this weekend -- the riding he represented as MP and NDP leader from 1968 until he left politics in 1990.

The NDP haven't held the riding since 1993. The Tories' Colin Carrie has held the riding since 2004, but the NDP are running former Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 president Mike Shields.

CAW president Ken Lewenza has declared political war on the Tories -- but so did his predecessor Buzz Hargrove in previous campaigns.

The Tories also extended a $290-million helping hand to General Motors, which employs thousands of CAW members, just days before Conservative Leader Stephen Harper triggered the election on Sept. 7. 

Mississauga South

Incumbent Paul Szabo was part of the Liberal crop of 1993, but the Tories hope to regain it after holding it for 14 years before Szabo's run. Financial advisor Hugh Arrison is running for the Tories.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper held a rally in this riding early in the campaign.

Szabo won by more than 2,100 votes in 2006, but his margin in 2004 was more than 8,600.

When Szabo first won the riding, he benefited from vote-splitting on the right. However, if he loses votes to the NDP and Greens, that could help Arrison triumph.

Mississauga South is one of the 20 Ontario "battleground" ridings that The Strategic Counsel polling firm had been tracking for CTV and The Globe and Mail. Polling for those ridings stopped Thursday, but Conservative support had shown a slight uptick. It's impossible to know whether that carried through the weekend.

Oakville

This affluent enclave is southwest of Mississauga South along the lakeshore. Liberal incumbent Bonnie Brown saw her 2006 margin of victory dwindle to fewer than 800 votes against Conservative Terrence Young, who is running again this time.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion was here twice last week.

The Strategic Counsel also identified Oakville as a "battleground" riding.

Burlington

The Conservatives took this riding -- which is southwest of Oakville -- from the Liberals in 2006, dislodging Paddy Tornsey. She had been a constant companion of Dion during his late campaign swings through southern Ontario. He made a stop in Burlington.

Conservative incumbent Mike Wallace defeated Tornsey by more than 2,600 votes. Had it been a head-to-head competition between Tornsey and Wallace, with all the Green-NDP vote going to Tornsey, she would have won by almost 9,000 votes.

Strong showings by the NDP and Greens could possibly help this riding stay Tory blue.

Halton, Mississauga-Streetsville

These two ridings share some boundary and one other characteristic -- their MPs ended up switching parties.

The Tories kicked Halton's Garth Turner out, ostensibly for some injudicious blogging. Months later, Turner joined the Liberals.

Mississauga-Streetsville's Wajid Khan crossed the floor to the Conservatives in early 2007, a year after winning re-election as a Liberal with an 8,900-vote margin. He is facing Liberal Bonnie Crombie as his main opponent. She has tried to make his floor-crossing an issue.

Khan has argued he's been able to get more done for the riding as a government MP.

The Tories handpicked Lisa Raitt, CEO of the Toronto Port Authority, to take on Turner.

"I've no idea what the day will bring. None. But I have hope," Turner wrote Monday in his blog about election day.