AnalysisWA election: Dawesville, Hillarys, Darling Range and Scarborough among seats to watch
An election campaign unlike any other is drawing to a close, with West Australian voters to have their say in just three days.
From starting the campaign amid a lockdown and fire emergency, to Zak Kirkup's shock concession more than two weeks from polling day, it has been an unprecedented battle in more ways than one.
Polling indicates the McGowan government will be comfortably re-elected, but there will still be plenty to watch for on election night.
So which are the seats to keep an eye on — and which ones might change hands?
Dawesville
Margin: Liberal 0.8 per cent
Key candidates: Zak Kirkup (Lib), Lisa Munday (ALP)
No seat will be more closely watched on election night.
The Opposition Leader is in the fight for his political life, holding the second most marginal Liberal seat in an election where polling is pointing to a sizeable swing to Labor.
As he took on the leadership, Mr Kirkup expressed confidence he would win — with Liberals believing he had built a strong local following and built his profile from four years ago when he was a political newcomer.
Labor thinks the swing in Dawesville will be less than in other seats, believing Mr Kirkup's profile will help.
But surviving the tide, if there is a swing of several per cent, will be extremely tough for Mr Kirkup — and he is in grave danger of becoming the first major party leader in WA in decades to lose their seat.
Hillarys
Margin: Liberal 0.4 per cent
Key candidates: Peter Katsambanis (Liberal), Caitlin Collins (ALP)
The northern suburbs electorate was one of the Liberals' safest not that long ago.
But a favourable redistribution has Labor sniffing blood and fancying its chances in a seat that is now the Liberals' most marginal.
Shadow police minister Peter Katsambanis won the seat in 2017 off Liberal-turned-independent Rob Johnson, in what was a bitterly contested race.
But it is a traditional Liberal-vs-Labor fight this time around, with Mr Katasambanis facing an enormous challenge to win another term and the Opposition pessimistic about its chances of holding on.
Darling Range
Margin: Liberal 3.5 per cent
Key candidates: Alyssa Hayden (Liberal), Hugh Jones (ALP)
No seat has a stranger backstory than this electorate on Perth's south-eastern fringe.
Labor won the seat for the first time in 2017, but its stay didn't even last 12 months — as Barry Urban's career ended in disgrace after lying about his backstory.
The subsequent by-election didn't go much better for Labor; its initial candidate quit after inconsistencies emerged about her background and the Liberals won the seat back relatively comfortably.
But both parties are sceptical about whether those events are fresh in the minds of voters this time around, with Liberals fearing the seat is all but gone.
Riverton
Margin: Liberal 4.2 per cent
Key candidates: Anthony Spagnolo (Liberal), Jagadish Krishnan (ALP)
Former Liberal leader Mike Nahan made this southern suburbs seat his own, winning it three times in a row.
But Labor has held the seat before, from 2001 to 2008, and believes it has a very good chance of picking it up again.
It includes some of Perth's leafier riverside suburbs — such as Shelley and Rossmoyne — but is also known for its sizeable migrant communities, which Labor thinks it has a strong connection to through its Indian-born candidate, who runs a GP clinic in the electorate.
In the blue corner is Anthony Spagnolo, a former staffer to both Nahan and Mathias Cormann, who faces a stiff challenge to make it into parliament.
Kingsley
Margin: Labor 1.2 per cent
Key candidates: Jessica Stojkovski (ALP), Scott Edwardes (Liberal)
Labor won the seat on a shoestring budget last time, a victory that was probably the biggest shock on a night full of them.
Now Jessica Stojkovski is attempting to win a second four-year term, after snaring the seat by 509 votes in 2017.
If a Labor seat is going to fall into Liberal hands, Kingsley is probably the most likely — with the Opposition putting significant resources into the electorate.
But that is a very big 'if'. With polling indicating a double-digit swing in Labor's favour, the prospects of any Liberal gains seem extremely slim.
Scarborough
Margin: Liberal 5.7 per cent
Key candidates: Liza Harvey (Liberal), Stuart Aubrey (ALP)
This is where it starts getting into nightmare territory for the Liberals.
No Opposition MP was under any illusion that seats like Darling Range, Hillarys and Dawesville were not going to be hard to hold onto.
But if seats like Scarborough, held by former leader Liza Harvey, begin to fall then the Liberals are in deep trouble.
While it is not a contest Labor has heavily focused on, Ms Harvey's margin is small enough that she will find it difficult to survive if there is a sizeable swing against the Liberals.
Kalgoorlie
Margin: Liberal 6.2 per cent
Key candidates: Kyran O'Donnell (Liberal), Ali Kent (ALP), Rowena Olsen (Nationals)
The volatile Goldfields electorate has been held by Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals and an independent at different points since the turn of the millennium.
Liberal Kyran O'Donnell holds the seat currently, having picked it up off the Nationals in 2017, but predicting an outcome in a three-cornered contest is never easy.
Labor is the bookmakers' overwhelming favourite, but the Liberals are hoping a local campaign around the gold royalty hike the government tried to introduce early in its term will resonate in the mining town.
Geraldton
Margin: Nationals 1.3 per cent
Key candidates: Ian Blayney (Nationals), Lara Dalton (Labor), Rob Dines (Liberal)
Ian Blayney spent 11 years as the Liberal member for Geraldton before jumping ship to the Nationals in 2019.
Now he faces a challenge for his seat from both ends of the spectrum.
Long a bellwether seat of WA politics, Labor had never formed government without winning Geraldton prior to 2017.
But Labor is seen as the overwhelming frontrunner this time around.
North West Central
Margin: Nationals 10.1 per cent
Key candidates: Vince Catania (Nationals), Cherie Sibosado (ALP), Alys McKeough (Liberal)
Labor would love nothing more than to throw Vince Catania out of a job.
The ill-feeling still runs deep over Mr Catania's defection from Labor to the Nationals a decade ago, and this shapes as the first real chance the red team has had to win back the seat since then.
Mr Catania would be a contender to lead the Nationals after the election — but holding onto his seat is far from assured, if the swing to Labor turns out to be as sizeable as polls indicate it might be.
South Perth
Margin: Liberal 7.2 per cent
Key candidates: Ryan Chorley (Liberal), Geoff Baker (ALP)
The idea of a Labor Member for South Perth would long have been thought of as absolutely absurd.
But the fact that bookmakers have it running neck and neck mirrors deep concerns within the Opposition about their ability to hold it.
If the margin in South Perth on election night is close, it will be a telling sign that the Liberals will suffer significant losses elsewhere.
And if the blue-ribbon seat falls into Labor hands, it will indicate the night is turning into an unmitigated disaster for the Liberals.
Others to keep an eye on
Few, if any, Liberal seats can definitively be called safe.
If a statewide swing the size of that seen in the most recent Newspoll eventuates, then Bateman, Nedlands and Carine would all be in severe danger.
Even Cottesloe and Vasse, the Liberals' two safest, would barely survive.
Labor-held Joondalup is the most marginal in the election but the government is confident it will hold on.
The Liberals held some hope in Murray-Wellington, Kalamunda, Bicton and Albany heading into the campaign, but all are likely to be well out of their reach if the predicted swing to Labor eventuates.