Victorian Coalition needs 16 seats to seize government in the 2026 election: Here are some to watch
The Victorian Coalition has to win back old Liberal Party heartlands in Melbourne — and turf out sitting members on the city’s fringe and regions — in order to beat Labor at next year’s state election. Here are the crucial battleground seats.
The Victorian Coalition will need 16 seats to seize government when the state heads to the polls in November 2026, a “mammoth” task likely decided in a handful of knife-edge electorates.
The party will have to win at least half of the 88 lower house seats to win, which will mean clawing back old heartland in Melbourne’s south‑east and north‑east, as well as turfing sitting members in the outer‑city-fringe and regional seats.
Liberal insiders concede ousting the Allan Labor government will be tough.
“It will be a mammoth job, but it’s not entirely impossible, and we know there’s a lot of resentment out there towards the government right now,” one party insider told the Herald Sun.
But even with the Labor government being on the nose, other factors will also be at play which will make many seats interesting battlegrounds during the election campaign next year.
This includes more than half a dozen retiring members from both major parties, potential three‑way contests in well-known seats, and a growing cohort of independent candidates that could see unpredictable results.
Experts say the Liberals must be focused on gaining ground in the North‑Eastern Metropolitan region and are likely to pick up some seats in the area based on current polling.
Freshwater Strategy director Dr Mike Turner said: “Ringwood is basically the mark on the ground”.
“They’ll need to pick up a couple of seats in that region, like Bayswater as well, and in and around that sort of Aston/Deakin area where there is traditional Liberal heartland.”
Ringwood is currently held by ex‑Labor MP turned independent Will Fowles, who has flagged he will run again.
But upper house Liberal MP Nick McGowan will challenge after announcing his tilt at the lower house in the seat for the November 2026 election.
He has already been campaigning heavily in the area, which will see the Labor candidate starting on the back foot.
Slightly to the south, in Bayswater, sitting Labor MP Jackson Taylor has announced he will not run for re‑election in 2026.
With a margin of just 4.2 per cent, it’s not considered a safe seat and there’s a real chance it could change hands and that Labor will be working hard to keep it from the Coalition.
Redbridge co‑director Kos Samaras predicted that Bass, Pakenham and Hastings “should be relatively quick pick-ups for the Liberals” if they keep polling strongly closer to the election.
Box Hill and Glen Waverley have also been flagged as key battleground seats, but Mr Samaras said they’ll be a “tough ask”.
With a 7.2 per cent margin, Box Hill is considered a safe seat, and current Labor member Paul Hamer has a strong personal brand locally.
There’s also a high share of Chinese‑Australian voters in Box Hill, who have traditionally leaned towards Labor.
But this means a strong swing against Labor in the early counts would put the seat in play, making it a key indicator for broader consequences.
According to one senior Liberal MP, the North‑Eastern Metropolitan region is where the party will be outing in its resources.
“There’s a lot of seats there we’ve held in the past and we have to get those back,” they told the Herald Sun.
Closer to the CBD, Prahran will be a seat worthy of the popcorn as it will likely be a three‑way contest.
In February, the Liberal Party’s Rachel Westaway took the seat in the Prahran by‑election, beating the Greens, after former Greens deputy Sam Hibbins vacated the seat under a cloud. Ms Westaway garnered 36 per cent of the primary vote, the same as her Greens competitor, but shot ahead on preferences.
However, the Allan government didn’t run a candidate, concerned about the optics of losing, so the experts agree it could be a very different result in 2026.
Mr Samaras said: “Once Labor stands a candidate, the vote will galvanise around the Greens and Labor, and that will send it back to the left.”
The result mean that the Liberals would have to pick up an additional seat elsewhere to make up the numbers.
In Hawthorn, former Liberal leader John Pesutto “also might be in significant trouble,” Mr Samaras said, mainly due to the threat of independents running against him.
Mr Pesutto however has become a seasoned campaigner having won the seat in 2014, losing it on 2018 election and then regaining it in 2022.
Mr Samaras added that new Liberal leader Jess Wilson “is definitely rock solid in Kew” despite the threat of Teal candidates running.
He said it would be interesting to see if more votes pour into her primary now that she’s taken the leadership position.
Looking at the south‑eastern sandbelt, including Mordialloc down to Frankston, Labor insiders are predicting at this stage these seats are unlikely to be lost.
“The Liberals’ primary would have to be in the mid‑40s for them to have a shot, but structurally their primary vote has been sitting in the 30s for such a long time now.”
One Labor MP told the Herald Sun that the likelihood of the Liberals taking these seats along with many other was unlikely.
“I just don’t see how they get there. They may pick up some and we have members who are worried in those marginal electorates but to get the 16 seats is very unlikely”.
Regionally, Ripon will be one of the most likely seats for Labor to lose. Labor’s Martha Haylett took the seat from former Liberal MP Louise Staley; however, she’s been battling discontent in the region, with her constituents opposed to the state’s controversial renewable rezoning as well as the Emergency Services Volunteer Levy.
In the west, Labor holds the “red wall”, but there’s a large number of independents likely to stand in these seats who could whittle away Labor’s hold on the areas. Dr Turner said support for these may not “materialise” on the day, even despite heavy local campaigning.
Looking to Premier Jacinta Allan’s seat in Bendigo, experts said that while at this stage she’s likely to retain her seat, “she would be nervous”.
Ms Allan won it from the Liberals in 1999 and has held it for more than two decades, but she could cop a swing against her if voter backlash to cost‑of‑living pressures, government debt and rising taxes continues.
“If you look at the National Party campaign in Bendigo at the federal election, they clearly kicked into gear and were a real campaigning machine in that area, and they saw a huge swing towards them,” Dr Turner said.
“So Ms Allan will certainly be nervous. It means she can’t take her foot off the gas.”
Originally published as Victorian Coalition needs 16 seats to seize government in the 2026 election: Here are some to watch
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