In their efforts to sway voters this election campaign, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have spent more than a month on the road, crisscrossing the country and visiting dozens of crucial seats.
In the last 36 days, the two leaders have clocked up more than a combined 102,178km in travel distance.
That’s the equivalent of 2421 marathons, 2,035,720 Olympic-sized swimming pools, or 7,568,740 standard buses lined up back to back.
Of the two leaders, Dutton has covered the greater distance, travelling 54,229km to Albanese’s 47,557km, while the prime minister has visited 23 different locations to the opposition leader’s 17.
With Sydney and Melbourne both looming as key battlegrounds tonight, with a swath of key seats up for grabs there, it’s little surprise both leaders visited the country’s two largest cities more than any other part of the country.
Which electorates the leaders have appeared in is instructive, providing an insight into which seats they think they can win, and which ones they’re worried about losing.
While Albanese toured Canberra and his own seat of Grayndler – both very safe Labor electorates – fairly frequently, he also made multiple visits to seats he needs to retain.
These include: Boothby in Adelaide; Parramatta, Bennelong and Reid in Sydney; Tangney, Hasluck and the newly created Bullwinkel in Perth; and Chisholm in Melbourne.
But in a possible sign of the prime minister’s growing confidence as the campaign wore on, he also appeared in some seats that Labor would have considered unlikely gains before the election was called.
Top of the list here is Dutton’s own seat of Dickson.
It was the first stop on Albanese’s campaign way back in late April, and he also visited yesterday as part of his last-day blitz across three states.
Similarly, the nearby Brisbane electorates of Bonner and Griffith, held by the LNP and Greens respectively, merited a couple of visits, as did Braddon in Tasmania, Deakin in Melbourne, Fowler in south-west Sydney, Leichhardt in Far North Queensland, and Sturt in Adelaide.
Dutton, for his part, has had a very clear focus on outer-suburban seats that the Liberals hope to win off Labor.
Tangney in Perth was visited four times by the opposition leader, the likes of Aston, Hawke and McKewen in Melbourne three times, and a handful of Western Sydney seats like Werriwa and McMahon twice.
Dutton also campaigned frequently in Labor-held seats around the NSW Hunter Valley and Central Coast, including Paterson and Robertson.
But he also spent lots of time campaigning at home in Dickson amid the strong Labor and independent challenges for the seat he’s held since 2001.
Just as telling as where the leaders have been is where they haven’t.
Albanese spent next to no time in the Nationals heartland of inland NSW, nor did he spend much time in the regions in Victoria or South Australia.
And while the Coalition took its transformative nuclear power policy to the election, Dutton didn’t visit any of the seven locations his party is proposing to build power plants should it win government.
Instead, he’s visited 15 petrol stations across the country, promoting a promised temporary cut to the fuel excise, while Albanese’s prop of choice has been his Medicare card as Labor strives to fight the election on health.
