Canavan's seat switch might backfire, but does he have a better option?

Is it a high-risk, high-reward gamble? Or is it the move of a man backed into a corner?

Matt Canavan's decision to make a tilt for the lower house seat of Capricornia at the next federal election is a signal of his eagerness to take up the Coalition's fight against Pauline Hanson's One Nation.

It also puts him at the front of the queue of potential casualties, should that battle go pear-shaped for the opposition.

While Capricornia is the seat that Canavan lives in, and is therefore the natural one for him to stand in, it also appears to be highly vulnerable.

At the 2025 election, One Nation recorded its third-highest primary vote in Capricornia, and nationally it is an outlier for the party.

One Nation polled 15.5 per cent of the primary vote in the seat in 2025, more than double its national result of 6.4 per cent.

With One Nation support nationally now roughly quadruple that result, you would expect its support in Capricornia to be well north of 30 per cent, perhaps even higher than 40 per cent.

It's why the seat is routinely on the list of likely One Nation gains if an election were held today.

At the state level, this is also a One Nation hotspot: The seat of Mirani, which One Nation won in 2017 and 2020 (before disendorsing its sitting MP ahead of the 2024 election), sits entirely within Capricornia.

So does Keppel, which One Nation's now-party director James Ashby stood for in the 2024 Queensland election, polling a quarter of the vote.

The mining sector makes up a large part of Capricornia's economy, including the major mining centres of Collinsville, Moranbah and Clermont, and Canavan has long sought to brand himself as a supporter of the coal mining industry.

The outgoing member, Michelle Landry, has held the seat since 2013, but with the area's industrial past, it has a long history of Labor members before that.

The Nationals have previously been able to see off threats around the country, in recent times largely from independents, partly because their incumbents were well known in their communities.

With Landry retiring, it is smart for the Nationals to run a high-profile and known candidate in her place (presuming Canavan wins preselection).

And despite the Nationals' current struggles in the polls, all is not lost for the party. To win in these parts One Nation needs to be far enough ahead of the Nationals on primary votes to stay ahead after preferences are distributed. Labor and Greens preferences (however many there are in 2028) are likely to break the Nationals way.

The other pathway for One Nation is to beat the LNP down into third place, and benefit from the preferences of excluded Nationals.

After much chatter, Hanson and party director Ashby (who has been a state election candidate in the area) have ruled out going for the seat.

Either way, the incumbents need to keep their primary votes high to hang on, and if anyone can keep their party's support afloat in a seat like Capricornia, it's Canavan.

It still all adds up to a gamble for the leader of the Nationals, but one he seems willing to make.

"I want to be on the front lines with my troops as well … [and] I'm happy to sacrifice potentially my own political future to do that," Canavan told ABC Radio Capricornia today.

"I just have to be there in the trenches with them."

Capricornia is near the top of a long list of problems

Capricornia may become one of the highest-profile contests between the conservative parties when the next federal election rolls around, but the big problem for the Nationals is that it is far from the only seat under threat.

If you run your finger down the list of One Nation's best seats in 2025, you'll see most of the Nationals party room.

Among the top 20, there are four Labor seats, five Liberal party room members, and 11 Nationals, most of whom are in Queensland.

If the party can't abate the threat posed by One Nation, it faces electoral annihilation.

And the damage wouldn't be limited to the lower house.

Canavan is up for re-election in 2028, and he holds the second LNP seat in Queensland, behind Liberal colleague James McGrath.

Polls of federal voting intention in Queensland have, more often than not, put One Nation ahead of the LNP in recent months.

If the figures in Newspoll's most recent quarterly aggregate of voting intention bore out at the next election, Queensland would most likely elect two Labor senators, two from One Nation, one from the Greens, and just one LNP senator.

It means that unless something changes, the Nationals leader is currently at risk of losing his seat.

Running for Capricornia may be a gamble, but what does he have to lose?

Canavan's odds of staying in parliament would have probably been better (but maybe only a bit better) had he chosen to run for the Senate for another term.

While he takes on a bit more personal risk by making this chamber switch, it may actually be his best opportunity to revive the Nationals' fortunes.

If he goes down with the ship, he'll at least be able to say he tried.