LIB 0.5%
Incumbent MP
James Stevens, since 2019.
Geography
Sturt lies in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. The southern part of the seat covers most of Burnside LGA, while Campbelltown and Norwood Payneham and St Peters LGAs cover the centre of the seat, and parts of the Port Adelaide Enfield and Tea Tree Gully LGAs cover the north of the seat.
Sturt stretches north to Grand Junction Road, and key suburbs include Glen Osmond, Burnside, Magill, Felixstow, Campbelltown, Klemzig, Gilles Plains, Rostrevor, Newton, Norwood, Stepney, Paradise, Athelstone and Highbury.
History
Sturt was created for the 1949 election, and has almost always been held by the Liberal Party. Indeed, except for two terms when it was held by the ALP, the seat was held by the same family from its creation until 1993.
The seat was first won by Keith Wilson in 1949. He lost the seat in 1954 to Norman Makin. Makin had served in the House of Representatives from 1919 to 1946, during which time he served as Speaker of the House of Representatives and a Minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments, before becoming Ambassador to the United States.
Makin abandoned the seat in 1955 for the safer Bonython, and Wilson returned to the seat. Wilson retired in 1966 and was succeeded by his son Ian. Ian served as a junior minister in the last term of the Fraser government before going to the backbench after the election of the Hawke government.
Wilson was challenged for preselection in 1993 by 25-year-old Christopher Pyne. Pyne held the seat for the next 26 years, serving as a minister in the Howard government and as a senior minister in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, before retiring in 2019.
Liberal candidate James Stevens won the seat in 2019, and was re-elected in 2022.
Assessment
Sturt is now a very marginal seat. If the Liberal Party is unable to rebuild its support with its former urban base Sturt could be vulnerable.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| James Stevens | Liberal | 48,579 | 43.1 | -7.4 |
| Sonja Baram | Labor | 34,528 | 30.7 | +0.8 |
| Katie McCusker | Greens | 18,454 | 16.4 | +5.2 |
| Stephen Grant | United Australia | 3,008 | 2.7 | +0.3 |
| Alexander Allwood | One Nation | 2,893 | 2.6 | +2.6 |
| David Sherlock | Animal Justice | 1,531 | 1.4 | -0.3 |
| Thomas McMahon | Liberal Democrats | 1,147 | 1.0 | +1.0 |
| Inty Elham | Democratic Alliance | 1,007 | 0.9 | +0.9 |
| Kathy Scarborough | Federation Party | 755 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Angela Fulco | Labor | 457 | 0.4 | -0.1 |
| Chris Schmidt | TNL | 251 | 0.2 | +0.2 |
| Informal | 6,541 | 5.5 | +0.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| James Stevens | Liberal | 56,813 | 50.5 | -6.4 |
| Sonja Baram | Labor | 55,797 | 49.5 | +6.4 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the centre (52.4%) and north (53.6%), while the Liberal Party polled 50.4% in the south. The Liberal candidate won thanks to a stronger performance on the pre-poll and other votes.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 14.8% on the pre-poll to 19.6% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 19.6 | 50.4 | 27,652 | 24.6 |
| Central | 16.9 | 47.6 | 16,291 | 14.5 |
| North | 15.8 | 46.4 | 12,575 | 11.2 |
| Pre-poll | 14.8 | 51.9 | 31,193 | 27.7 |
| Other votes | 14.7 | 52.6 | 24,899 | 22.1 |
Election results in Sturt at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
@Votante The Greens always overestimate their gains. At the QLD state election they said they were confident of winning 10 seats, when they only picked up one.
@Jimbo there are many factors that work towards a Labor flip in this seat. Not withstanding the popularity of the Labor brand in general in SA (Albanese isn’t disliked here like he is in Queensland for example), the Greens making inroads in the Norwood and Kensington areas will help fuel Labor through preferences. North of the Torrens River is strong Labor voting territory which I expect to stay stable. The other thing is that Clutterham and McCusker have both been door-knocking everywhere, but James Stevens almost seems to be winging it with a less than prominent campaign. The Teal candidate throws a spanner into the works but I doubt it’ll make a huge impact.
If the Greens increase and Liberals decrease by any measure with Labor staying stable then it’s quite likely Labor wins. For the first time in forever this seat is genuinely in play and as a resident of Sturt I say bring it on.
@Tommo9 It will be a challenge for Stevens to hold this seat, his parties policies are at odds with where a lot of Sturt now leans. The demographics changed over the years and leans more progressive. Saw that with the Green vote increase in 2022. Possibly his only hope is strengthening his primary vote in the southern booths.
Interesting to see a Teal candidate in the ring for this election. She could be a surprise king/queen maker for this seat. Will be interesting to see how Claire Cutterham goes, good pick here I think.
Has any polling been done specifically on Sturt?
I would have called the seat in play in 2022. Now it’s probably the most likely opportunity for Labor to pick up a seat from the Liberals. And I expect they will as long as current polls hold – SA hasn’t been getting any better for the Liberals since 2022 and this is a seat that has trended left over time.
According to Kos Samaras, Sturt has the eight largest number of commonwealth public servants among all federal seats. The Coalition’s policy to slash the commonwealth public service can cause backlash in Sturt and may well help them hand the seat to Labor. https://x.com/KosSamaras/status/1906172304931094660
@joseph these people probably voted labor in 2022 anyway
I’ve lived in the blue-est bits of this electorate for most of my life. Anecdotally, there was a bipartisan endearment toward Christopher Pyne, but James Stevens has basically the opposite. My street’s currently lined with Labor, Green and Teal corflutes on houses that once belonged to very loudly Liberal neighbours. Even with polling showing otherwise, I still feel change in me bones.
Is there polling showing otherwise? I’ve felt from before the start of the campaign that this was a decent chance for Labor and now I’d even say I think it’s a likely win.
@Sturtgorl I agree with you. People are assuming that Sturt will hold because Newspoll or whatever is showing a supposed 2PP swing back to the Liberals compared to 2022 in SA which also puts Boothby in play which I doubt as well. Labor’s not going to lose Boothby and unlike the other Labor seats in the outer suburbs Sturt is more inner-city/middle ring and has been moving towards the left since the last cycle. Both Labor and Greens have doorknocked extensively and especially in blue ribbon areas. It’s ripe for picking. The swings are more likely to be in Makin, Spence and Kingston which are similar to that of North/Western Melbourne and Western Sydney.
Also for anyone’s interest, Labor’s drawn pole position on the ballot with the Liberals on 3rd, Cooper (Teal) on 4th and Greens last. A donkey vote will benefit Labor and that could be all it takes to unseat Stevens given the razor thin margin.
The polling for SA shows a small move of <0.5% to the Liberals but it hides the differences between regions. I mentioned earlier that I reckon that the outer suburbs (Spence and Kingston, both safe Labor seats) will swing more to the Liberals.
It looks like Labor is better planned and has a better candidate this time around. I was rereading some comments in this thread.
Kent Davidson on page 1 said "Sonja was a dummy candidate for the ALP, merely selected by the FEC, only two weeks out did the party realize it was winnable".
@AA, "The Greens always overestimate their gains."
I read comments saying that targeting this gives the SA Greens something to focus on.
I actually can’t see a single reason for the Liberals to be favourites here. SA has a popular Labor government winning recent by-elections with big swings, this is an area that has trended towards Labor over recent elections, James Stevens seems to be a rather anonymous MP, it looks like Labor is taking this as a serious prospect when it might have been more of a stretch in 2022, and the latest election polling is now showing Labor with potentially a relatively similar nationwide vote to 2022. If what we’ve witnessed over the last state and federal electoral cycle of inner to middle urban areas trending Labor holds, that puts this seat in the Labor pickup column even with a status quo nationwide 2PP.
There’s still time for polls to change but as it currently stands I can’t see this tiny Liberal margin holding up.
By that, I mean that I don’t see how the current polls support the case that the Liberals hold. I’m not saying that it is a lock based on the current numbers.
@Adda There were two Yougov electorate specific polls this year that showed Lib ahead in sturt, one of them was released after the nation wide 2pp started to drop for the Coalition, but was probably gathering data prior to this. That’s what I was referring to – I just don’t think it reflects reality.
On a similar note, Sportsbet has odds for Labor in Sturt at 3.1. They also suspended bets for Labor in Sturt for most of last night – might’ve been a little too popular?
Albanese has been here twice now I think during the campaign
Given the polls showing a swing back to ALP, strong labor brand in SA and how the LNP have done poorly in metro seats e.g in the WA election like Churchlands I’d expect ALP to pick up this seat
dare i say this is a likelier ALP gain at this stage than any potential LNP gains are likely for them – maybe gilmore is the exception, or aston but i consider that a little differently.