But her reward may be betrayal if her party fails to significantly erode Labor's 53 of 59 seat stranglehold on Western Australia's lower house in Saturday's poll, following its unprecedented landslide victory in 2021.
"The better she performs, the more time she has opposition leader in the next term, and to gain traction," political analyst and Notre Dame University executive dean Martin Drum told AAP.
"Closer to 20 (seats), that buys her time ... obviously if she finishes with 10, ... the knives will be out pretty soon."
Two opinion polls published on Friday point to gains for the Liberals.
A Demos AU survey of 1126 people predicts a 57-43 two-party preferred vote, with a 13 per cent swing against Labor that could put up to 11 seats in reach of the Liberals.
Newspoll similarly predicts Liberal gains of up to 11 seats, with its polling showing a 57.5 to 42.5 two-party-preferred Labor lead from a 12.2 per cent swing, up from 56-44 a month ago.
Ms Mettam had performed well during the campaign despite being forced to do the majority of the work due to the small number of experienced Liberals in office, Professor Drum said, after the party was reduced to two lower house seats in the last poll.
"Every other seat is being contested by new candidates who don't have the benefit of incumbency (and) ... They've got a small upper-house team," he said.
"In December last year, she had this (leadership) challenge of sorts that fell flat ... and she's also coming up against a Labor government that's reasonably cashed up."
Multiple Liberal candidates have also been accused of poor behaviour, controversial comments and derogatory social media posts.
"The challenge is pretty enormous," Prof Drum said.
Many Liberals view the party's candidate for Churchlands - high-profile Perth media personality and the city's lord mayor Basil Zempilas - as a future leader if he wins the seat Labor presently holds on the slimmest of margins.
"Most people concede it's impossible for (Ms Mettam) to win (the election) and she's got someone breathing over her shoulder," Prof Drum said.
Experts tip a comfortable win for Labor but its massive lower-house majority is expected to shrink, and it's likely to lose control of the upper house.
Prof Drum said Saturday's election was likely to yield a result similar to Labor's 2017 victory when it secured 41 lower house seats. The Liberals won 13 and the Nationals five.
"The main focus of the Liberals has been winning back the heartland this election, and that's a series of seats that were lost in 2021 which normally are safe for them," he said.
"If (the Liberals) were up to 20 (seats) that's business as usual ... (but) 15 is pretty viable."
The official WA opposition party after it won four lower house seats in 2021, the WA Nationals, could also lose its leader, Shane Love.
He is battling former colleague Merome Beard, who left the Nationals and joined the Liberals, in a new seat called Mid-West, after the electorates of Moore and North West Central were merged.
"He's got a sitting MP challenging for his seat ... so he's got a fight on his hands to win," Prof Drum said.
He said the Nationals were likely to win between three and five seats and were unsurprisingly focused on regional electorates during the campaign, despite fielding candidates for three metropolitan seats.
"I can't see them making a big splash," Prof Drum said.
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