Sturt Liberal MP James Stevens’ battle to fend off Labor’s Claire Clutterham

A key MP thinks Liberals “have no chance” if he fails to take the state’s most marginal seat.

Sturt's James Stevens campaigning with former local MP Christopher Pyne. Picture: Facebook

James Stevens says he is in the fight of his life to hold the inner-city seat of Sturt for the Liberals as latest polls show voters across the country turning against his party.

“We have no chance of winning government if we lose the seat of Sturt,” the sitting member said of his knife-edge seat on election-day eve.

“We need to be winning about 20 seats nationally to win government on top of all the seats we have. If we lose the seat of Sturt, it’s going to be very challenging for us.”

The seasoned campaigner is not giving up and intends remaining armed with how-to-vote cards at polling booths in the see the has held since 2019 right up to closing time at 6pm.

“I’m going to dig deep for another 30 hours,” Mr Stevens said. “I’m not brave enough to predict how tight the contest is, but like last time we are going to have a very tight result in Sturt.”

Sturt has been a Liberal stronghold seat since 1972 but the latest YouGov poll on Thursday tipped its tiny 0.5 per cent margin, the slimmest in the state, could be snatched away by Labor’s Claire Clutterham.

Sturt's James Stevens campaigning with Liberal Leader Peter Dutton. Picture: Facebook

At the last election, it took four to five days for a result in the only Liberal-held metropolitan Adelaide seat, with about 1000 votes deciding the winner. Before Mr Stevens won Sturt in 2019, it was held by another high-profile Liberal, Christopher Pyne, from 1993.

“It’s been a very full throttle campaign – I’ve got three opponents this time with the Labor Party and the Greens and the teals,” Mr Stevens said.

“But like all campaigns, I’ve had a plan for myself and it doesn’t matter what the opposition is doing. I’m the only Liberal in metropolitan Adelaide.”

If Mr Stevens fails to take Sturt and Nicolle Flint fails to win the other swing seat in Boothby, “there won’t be any representation for the people in the city of Adelaide and I feel an enormous responsibility to the party and to my supporters across Adelaide”. Labor insiders believe Ms Flint will get a bigger swing against the party than what may be recorded nationally and is well in the hunt to reclaim her old electorate.

Mr Stevens, the Liberal Party’s shadow assistant minister for government waste reduction, was former premier Steven Marshall’s chief of staff.

Mr Marshall’s electorate of Norwood was in prime Sturt territory.

Mr Stevens, who lives in the electorate with his partner Alex May and attended the local St Peter’s College in his early years, expected a tight competition and counting going down to the wire.

Claire Clutterham with high-profile Labor MPs campaigning for Sturt. Picture: Facebook

A parade of high-profile Liberals have campaigned in the prized electorate, including Liberal leader Peter Dutton twice, deputy leader Sussan Ley, Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor, ex-minister Mr Pyne, former leader Alexander Downer, and state Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia.

The electorate sweeps across Adelaide’s eastern and northeastern suburbs with 200,000 residents stretching across seven local councils and eight state electorates.

Labor’s hope, Ms Clutterham, says she has knocked on about 10,000 doors in Sturt since June last year and has focused on running “a really disciplined and structured ground campaign”.

The lawyer and former Norwood Payneham and St Peters councillor also has been backed by serious political clout. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has campaigned in the electorate three times, while Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, Health Minister Mark Butler, former prime minister Julia Gillard and Premier Peter Malinauskas have been handing out how-to-vote cards.

Australian Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Marden in the electorate of Sturt joined by Labor’s candidate for Sturt, Claire Clutterham, with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and SA Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

Mr Malinauskas launched both Ms Clutterham and Boothby Labor sitting member Louise Miller-Frost’s campaigns. Ms Miller-Frost holds a 3.3 per cent margin.

“I’ve come into the last week of the campaign with a huge amount of energy and I’m so motivated to finish this campaign strongly,” Ms Clutterham said.

She lives in the electorate with her husband, Ben Pudney, and worked on the campaign hustings to see Labor’s Cressida O’Hanlon take the seat of Norwood at the last state election.

“Of course I don’t have the benefit of six years of incumbency, but I have had a small community presence as a councillor,” she said.

“I’ve had so much support from a lot of volunteers.”

Originally published as Sturt Liberal MP James Stevens’ battle to fend off Labor’s Claire Clutterham