But as Karen Ashford reports, the mortgage belt seat of Boothby in Adelaide southern suburbs looks set to remain in Liberal hands, with the ALP suffering collateral damage amidst the demise of hometown girl Julia Gillard.
The outer metropolitan seat of Boothby stretches from seaside sands to semi-rural foothills, and is home to about 98,000 voters
ALP candidate Annabel Digance thinks little more than 100 of them could change Boothby's political colour from conservative blue to Labor red.
"The margin actually will vary depending on where you look, some would say 0.6, some would say 0.3. So we'll go 0.6 for the sake of this so that's only a hundred or so, you know, a couple of hundred votes that I need to make up to bring it across the line. "
Ms Digance is working the Aberfoyle Hub shopping centre as she makes her second tilt at Boothby.
"I think had I started as a new candidate, no name or brand in the area, that certainly would be more difficult but many people do know me in the area and are very pleased to see me back again."
The issues here typical of middle class suburbs around the nation.
"Health and Education would be my two main priorities, health and education."
"We want to see a healthy economy in Australia, and want it to be healthy for everybody, not for just certain groups of the population."
"Costs like electricity, wages, super, workcover, all these sort of things. The harder you work the more they seem to beat you with a stick, just a vicious circle trying to keep your head above water and I think it's probably the hardest I've seen it in the last 8 to 10 years really."
In theory, Boothby should be Labor's best chance for a win.
But University of Adelaide head of Politics Professor Clem Macintyre says it's not that simple.
"I think net across South Australia there's likely to be a swing away from the government and towards the Liberals but probably not enough for it to cost any of the Labor seats that are being defended, but if that is the case it is going to be very hard for Labor to pick up either of the marginal Liberal ones. So that's Boothby on 0.6 per cent and Sturt on a bit over 3. Sturt of course is Christopher Pyne's seat, he has a very high profile, I think Labor, being realistic, are not sensing a chance of victory there, so again they'll be putting their time and energy into Boothby but it will be a difficult challenge for them."
"Good morning how are you, Andrew Southcott, some information from me, thank you, nice to meet you, hello, something for the next election ..."
A train emerges through the early morning fog at a railway station where Liberal MP Andrew Southcott is handing out leaflets.
The sitting member for the past 17 years thinks Labor's lost its puff in the battle for Boothby.
"I would actually say they put a lot more resources in, in 2007 and 2010 I haven't got the sense that the Labor Party, in fact I think the Labor Party have been doing much less than they have in 2007 and 2010."
Despite losing ground at every election since he took the seat in1996, Mr Southcott thinks this time will be different.
That's not just because the Labor-leaning state is now swinging towards the Liberals, but because he thinks he's been given an unexpected boost by Boothby expatriate Julia Gillard.
"In large part it was Julia Gillard's very strong local credentials that got Labor so close in 2010. Really this year the Labor Party had built their entire campaign around Julia Gillard's local credentials. Unfortunately for them Kevin Rudd came along and knifed the local girl, knifed the hometown girl. So that's a problem for the Labor Party."
Professor Clem Macintyre says it has set the scene for a battle with national ramifications.
"Labor of course will be doing everything it can to win Boothby, it knows that it's likely to lose seats in a few other parts of Australia - Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales have been suggested as sites where Labor will lose seats; It's looking to pick up seats in Queensland, but if it can pick one up against the odds in South Australia that takes a bit of pressure off what's going on for Labor in the other states. For its part the Liberals know that if they can defend Boothby and win seats in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania then even if they concede a few seats in Queensland they're still likely to get over the line. So Boothby has a really strategic importance for both parties as a contribution towards their push for government."
With both sides striving to gain an edge, it's perhaps no surprise that accusations of dirty tricks were quick to surface.
For some months a flyer has been circulating describing Dr Southcott as Dr Do-Little, an attempt to paint the sitting member as lazy - and an issue raised by one voter without any prompting.
"I want to see a member who's going to be there for you, not someone who has been a sitting member for so long and doesn't really have any priorities to come out and see their constituents."
But an attempt to capitalise on public sentiment through social media has backfired on Labor.
A tweet about Andrew Southcott issued on day one of the election campaign which said "aren't u on holiday in Fiji 4 the next two weeks? No dif than usual I guess" was revealed to have been sent by a Labor staffer.
It forced state Premier Jay Weatherill into an apology when it became evident Dr Southcott was actually campaigning in his electorate.
"What the Labor Party did on the first day of the campaign went way beyond a personal attack, it was a deliberate lie designed to damage me and it was actively promoted by the Labor Party to journalists, and it was just way beyond a personal attack, it was a disgrace."
The stunt did little to help Ms Digance.
"As far as the comment what the local member does or what he doesn't do that is up for the electorate to decide and they will decide on September the 7th. As far as the social media goes that is not my style. I knew nothing of it, I don't condone it, we've fixed it and we've moved on and I'm campaigning, that's my focus."
The robust campaign for Boothby is no surprise to seasoned observers like Professor Macintyre.
"It's sort of within reaching distance and it's therefore one they will concentrate on and of course by pouring resources into Boothby in South Australia what the Labor Party's doing is forcing the Liberals to defend that seat and perhaps allocate fewer resources to some of the marginal seats that Labor are defending. Both Adelaide and Hindmarsh are both on margins more like 6 per cent, so I think Labor is now slightly more confident it is going to keep those seats, less work defending those, move onto the attack in Boothby and that forces the Liberals in a sense onto the back foot in terms of the allocation of their resources. So there's a really important strategic battle in terms of the calculations made by the campaign offices and terms of where they put resources."
Professor Macintyre sums up Boothby as an intriguing seat that been a target for the ALP for a number of elections.
He says although Labor has gone close to winning it several times since it was captured by the Liberals 64 years ago, they've never quite made it - and he expects that to remain unchanged for now.
"The polls suggest there will be a swing away from the government to the Liberal Party across most of South Australia and even though Boothby's the most marginal Liberal seat in Australia as we go into the election I suspect it'll be slightly safer for Andrew Southcott after the election."
