Nine Seats on the Line: Nationals Face One Nation Threat in Victoria
The Victorian Nationals will defend nine lower house seats at the November state election while One Nation polls about 20% statewide and higher in regional areas.
The party is coming off its best result since 1943. At the 2022 Victorian election the Nationals picked up three seats from independents to reach nine in the lower house.
Public polling puts the Coalition in third place on first preferences. The September 2026 Guardian Essential poll put One Nation's primary vote, which means first preferences before preferences are distributed, at 25%, ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition on 22% and behind Labor on 29%, according to The Guardian. Other polls cited in the same reporting have One Nation at about 20% statewide, with stronger support in regional Victoria.
Two private polls have also been reported. Victorian Labor internal polling leaked in June suggested the Nationals could face a wipeout in November. A separate poll commissioned by Trades Hall had the Nationals losing at least three seats to One Nation.
One Nation won its first federal lower house seat from the Coalition at the Farrer byelection.
The seats in play
The party is trying to attack and defend at the same time. They have preselected local pub owner Andrew Lethlean for Bendigo East, the former seat of Jacinta Allan. Alongside Bendigo East, the party is targeting Labor-held Bendigo West and Ripon at the coming state election.
The party is also defending its heartland. Gippsland East was once one of the National Party's safest seats. Mildura, now held by Jade Benham, is the sort of electorate strategists once filed under safe.
The leaders are confirmed. Danny O'Brien is leader of the Victorian Nationals and MP for Gippsland South. He is also the opposition spokesperson for roads. Warren Pickering is the Victorian leader of One Nation. At federal level, Matt Canavan was elected leader of the Nationals in March, according to the ABC.
The response
O'Brien said: "There are no safe seats and frankly, they haven't been for a long time."
Benham said One Nation are "100%" the Nationals' biggest threat.
The detail was laid out in The Guardian's 'Seeing orange: Nationals under threat in regional Victoria ...' published on 10 October 2026.
The broader context here is difficult for a junior Coalition partner. The Nationals built the 2022 result by squeezing independents in three-cornered regional contests, where Liberals, Nationals and an independent all ran and where organisation and local incumbency mattered. One Nation does not fight on those terms. It runs on brand, grievance and low overheads. It does not need branches in every town to trouble an MP.
Looking at what this means for campaign headquarters, the resource problem is clear. Every dollar and volunteer hour spent trying to take Bendigo West or Ripon off Labor is a dollar not spent holding Mildura or Gippsland East. For a nine-seat party room, that trade matters. Lose three, as the Trades Hall polling suggests is possible, and the parliamentary weight that justifies ministries, staff and leverage inside the Coalition starts to thin.
In my view, the Essential numbers deserve more attention than the usual dismissal of minor-party polling spikes. A 25% primary that sits ahead of the Coalition is not a standard protest reading. It points to voters who once stayed with the Nationals while still seeing themselves as Coalition people now being willing to vote elsewhere in the lower house, not just the upper house. That is the shift the Farrer result foreshadowed. If it repeats in Victoria, preferences, the backup choices that decide close seats, will not save incumbents who finish second in what used to be safe country.
A word of caution here about the wipeout talk. None of this means the wipeout warned of in the June leak is locked in. Leaked internal polls from opponents should be treated with scepticism. They are leaked because someone benefits. Regional campaigns are still retail, candidates still matter, and Lethlean-style local preselections are exactly how the Nationals beat independents last time.
But spin aside, the structure of the contest has changed. The Nationals are no longer the default second choice for disaffected regional conservatives. They are one of two choices. O'Brien knows it. Benham has said it. The November vote, when Victorians elect the next Victorian Parliament, will test whether nine seats was a base or a peak.
