The north-east Victorian electorate of Benambra has been held by the Liberal party since 1976, a political streak that could end on Saturday.
After preferences, about 2,000 votes gave Liberal Bill Tilley the edge over independent Jacqui Hawkins after the 2018 election.
Those two, and Labor candidate Mark Tait, have returned for an encore tussle.
Benambra falls entirely within the federal seat of Indi, which voted in independent Cathy McGowan in 2013 with the backing of the Voices for Indi community group.
Ms McGowan's successor, Helen Haines, is serving her second term.
Zareh Ghazarian, Monash University senior lecturer in politics, said Benambra was "one to watch" on Saturday, and to win the election the Coalition “must hold on to this seat”.
And that could be a challenge because "party loyalty isn’t as strong as it once was" in Victoria.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy will spend his penultimate day on the campaign trail pounding the pavement in Benambra.
It will be his fourth visit since April.
Premier Daniel Andrews, by contrast, is yet to officially visit the electorate, although he was on the electorate's fringe in Albury this month.
Recent elections have also shown that "voters are happy and willing to vote for non-major party candidates".
Contest in 'McGowan country'
Ms Hawkins said a victory for her in Benambra "would really shake the ground".
She said she was surprised by the close result in 2018 and her campaign had matured since.
With 250 corflutes across the electorate, and what Ms Hawkins estimates to be about 180 volunteers, her visibility as a candidate in Wodonga is indisputable.
Wodonga, Yackandandah, Beechworth and Corryong all fall within Benambra.
"McGowan country”, Ms Hawkins said, where the "movement of independents started".
“The community is my party”, she added.
Mr Tilley, who has represented Benambra for the Liberals since 2006, warned against "buyer's regret" when it came to voting independent.
"You become a letter writer" or "white noise" as an independent in parliament, he said.
"If you want to change the government, unfortunately, whether you like me or not, you need to vote Liberal," Mr Tilley said.
The 2018 result "wasn't what I was traditionally used to", he said, but it was part of a bigger trend with the Coalition losing ground across Victoria.
The challenge, he said, was a long time spent in opposition. The Liberal Party has been in government for one term in his 16-year stint in the job.
Meanwhile, Benambra's Labor candidate, Mark Tait, is looking ahead to an "interesting Saturday night".
"This one's going to be a lot closer," he predicted, and "preferences are going to be everything".
Labor preferences in the seat will flow to Hawkins and "Bill [Tilley] would have to be nervous," Mr Tait said.
A loss in Benambra "would certainly break a very big cycle for the conservatives" and it "shows you can win these seats if you put a lot of effort into it", he said.
Will Benambra follow in Indi's footsteps?
"Yellow is the new orange," said Labor candidate Mark Tait, in reference to former Indi MP Cathy McGowan's presence in the Hawkins campaign, which dons yellow in lieu of Voices for Indi's signature orange.
Ms McGowan has also appeared alongside Ms Hawkins in advertisements on social media and television. Her support is clear.
It would be "profound" if Ms Hawkins won the seat, Ms McGowan said.
"I think it would be the only electorate," to have a female independent at both the state and federal level", she said.
"That can only be good for Australia, Benambra and Indi."
The feeling amid pre-polling was positive Ms McGowan said but, "Whether it's enough for Jacqui to win I'm not sure – but it's certainly enough to make me think that the seat is very competitive, and preferences will be very important."
Change in Victoria's north-east
The region has changed a lot in the past 20 years, Ms McGowan said.
Young people "used to be our greatest export" she said, but that was changing.
"In some regional areas that's still the case but it's definitely turning around in north-east Victoria," she said.
Ms McGowan said she believed the "new younger demographic will vote with Jacqui".
Ms McGowan also gets "enormous encouragement" from young people's involvement in politics locally, seeing this as a product of the work of Voices for Indi, herself and Ms Haines.
She said she's looking forward to a younger "more diverse parliament".
Ms Hawkins is one of many independents standing in this state election and Ms McGowan has theories as to why so many — at both state and federal level — are women.
"Parties make it hard for women," she said.
"These women who would normally be in a party are not so welcome."
Ms McGowan said women also "really take to this idea of representing their community" because often they had already been doing community work.
Test for 'teals' and other independents
Dr Ghazarian cautions against drawing electoral conclusions from national politics to state politics, and vice versa.
There’s different dynamics at play, he says.
"At this election we’ll see if teals and independents more generally are a sustainable force disruptor in Victoria politics," he said.
However, if the Liberal Party "were to lose a seat like Benambra it suggests the party still has a long way to go to really reconnect and resonate with voters."
