A tight race in suburban Launceston in Bass, huge Labor losses in two key parts of Braddon and swings to the Liberals across the board in Lyons tells the story of how the state's three swing seats played out on Saturday.
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Liberal Bridget Archer has held onto Bass with a 0.7 per cent two-party preferred swing to boost her margin to 1.1, while counterpart Gavin Pearce won a 5.2 per cent swing in Braddon to make the seat safe for the Liberals on 8.3.
Labor's Brian Mitchell has narrowly withstood a challenge from Liberal Susie Bower in Lyons, where a 4.5 per cent swing was not quite enough for a surprise result, leaving it on a margin of just 0.7.
A booth-by-booth analysis shows where Labor lost the most ground in Braddon and Lyons, while Bass again went down to fine margins.
It also shows there are shifting sands in each seat. Once traditional Labor areas are increasingly moving to the Liberals - a shift that is quite stark in certain regions.
Bass - Liberals hold ground in Launceston's north
Ms Archer's 2019 win followed significant swings in Labor heartland - particularly her home area of George Town, along with double digit gains in Ravenswood, Rocherlea and Waverley, and winning more voters throughout Launceston's northern suburbs.
(Dark blue: swing greater than 5% to Liberal; light blue: swing 0-5% to Liberal; light red: swing 0-5% to Labor; dark red: swing greater than 5% to Labor):
Her wafer thing margin meant she had to at least maintain these voters, and it appears she achieved that on Saturday, plus more.
There were further strong swings to the Liberals in Waverley and Ravenswood, while they mostly held ground in Rocherlea, Newnham and Invermay.
The party did see heavy losses in Riverside and Prospect however, effectively offsetting Labor's losses in those area from 2019 and returning that balance. A possible factor could have been Labor's housing policies at the last election, which it has since dropped.
Those losses needed to be offset somewhere else for the Liberals, and for the second election in a row Ms Archer achieved significant swings in the two George Town booths. Since 2016 George Town has moved from 69-31 Labor to 52-48 Liberal, with a similar shift in George Town South.
The Liberals also picked up significant new voters in Legana, South Launceston, Scottsdale and the two booths on Flinders Island.
It was impossible for Labor to offset these swings elsewhere, and the party could only achieve small gains in votes in suburban Launceston, along with smaller booths in Beaconsfield, Beauty Point and Lebrina.
Ms Archer's overall lead still makes it one of regional Australia's most marginal electorates, and in the next term of government she will need to maintain these voters and still pick up new ones.
A move to greater independence from the Liberals in opposition could be key, should the party pursue any conservative shift.
Braddon - Labor smashed in Devonport and West Coast
Labor considered Braddon in play on Saturday needing only a 3.1 per cent swing, which national polling suggested was within the realm of possibility. But by 7.30pm, it was clear that was not going to happen.
Of most concern for the party would be its performance in two of its traditionally stronger areas: Devonport and the West Coast.
Labor suffered a 10.4 per cent swing in East Devonport, a lower socioeconomic area, while also losing significant numbers of voters in the city's other booths. Montello in Burnie had a strong shift to the Liberals, in addition to the city's outer areas.
The Liberals continued to build on their substantial leads further west along the coast.
Things got ugly for Labor in the mining towns.
Rosebery saw a 15.2 per cent swing to the Liberals, and the figure reached 19.5 in Tullah, 11.6 in Zeehan and 9.9 in Queenstown. This likely reflects a similar shift seen on the mainland, where regions dependent on the resource sector are increasingly taking comfort in conservative parties as opposed to their union-influenced past.
The rural areas to the south of Wynyard and Burnie also strongly swung to the Liberals, but Labor did collect new voters in Forth and several small rural booths.
It means Braddon is now a safe Liberal seat, after being held by Labor as recently as 2019.
Mr Pearce's positioning as a backer of heavy industry and the resource sector appears to have paid dividends.
Lyons - Uniform swing not quite enough for Liberals
Like in Braddon, Labor lost significant ground in some of its strongest traditional areas, although the 2019 result may have skewed the booths and many could have shifted back to their normal positions on Saturday.
Even so, the 5.2 per cent swing needed for the Liberals to win the seat seemed highly unlikely given national polling. They fell short at 4.5, which would still be of concern for Labor if it wishes to hold the seat in three years' time.
In 2019, Labor's Brian Mitchell picked up huge swathes of new voters all along the East Coast, but these appear to have swung straight back on Saturday, particularly at Swansea, Scamander and Orford.
Labor could usually rely on outer northern Hobart, but that seems to be changing.
Some of their heaviest negative swings were in Gagebrook, Pontville and Brighton, while also sustaining significant losses around the Coal River Valley.
Booths in and around New Norfolk also heavily swung to the Liberals.
Lyons is a vast electorate - and Tasmania's most diverse - but the swing against Labor was fairly consistent across the board. Outer southern Launceston went back to the Liberals, in addition to smaller swings in the Meander Valley.
Lyons will become Tasmania's most marginal electorate as Labor holds just a 0.7 per cent margin two-party preferred.
Unusual campaigns two times in a row - first with a Liberal candidate who resigned after social media comments, and second with Mr Mitchell's unsavoury social media past coming back up - leaves Lyons unpredictable again in the future.
Mr Mitchell will need to pick up new voters while in government.
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