The independent poised to win the Victorian seat of Indi says she never had a strategy to take down Liberal incumbent Sophie Mirabella.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is expected to finish counting in the electorate on Wednesday, with only about 500 votes left to distribute.
Cathy McGowan is 387 votes ahead of Ms Mirabella.
"There was never a strategy to bring down Sophie Mirabella," Ms McGowan told ABC radio on Wednesday.
"There was a strategy to engage the people of Indi to make the seat marginal through looking at what they thought were the issues and running a campaign on what they thought was important."
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She confirmed reports she and other members of social research project Voice for Indi met with Ms Mirabella in December to share research on the issues locals were interested in.
Ms McGowan says she came out of that meeting feeling like "something's out of kilter," because the sitting member didn't seem interested in their findings and thought she already knew what people were thinking.
That didn't match with what Ms McGowan found people were saying.
The independent said she'd received support from across the political spectrum during her election campaign.
"In rural communities people understand that putting the issues of your community first often will come above party politics," she said.
"What I ran was a community campaign. It was a vote for the role of government to deliver infrastructure for regional communities."
