Drum holds the safest House of Representatives seat in the country. The bookies have him as an unbackable favourite, paying out $1 for every hundred put down.
And yet Drum is not behaving like a smug incumbent confident of re-election. He’s campaigning and campaigning hard. The question is, why?
Drum arguably won the hardest battle of his federal career back in 2013 when he defeated Liberal Duncan McGauchie and seized the seat from the Nationals’ Coalition ally.
He was able to do so because of the retirement of the Liberals’ Sharman Stone. National and Liberal candidates do not run against each other if either party already holds a seat, except when an incumbent retires.
The Liberals could have used a loop-hole in this ‘‘Coalition Agreement’’ to run against Drum in Nicholls in 2019. Nicholls is technically a new seat with slightly different boundaries to the old division of Murray, but the local Liberals decided such a move would breach the spirit of the agreement.
They may have also decided campaigning against Drum a second time, bolstered by incumbency, would have been pointless. Drum already proved he could defeat them from a standing start.
None of the other current candidates for Nicholls stand much of a chance, which makes their candidacy all the more admirable. Both independents barely managed 2500 first preference votes between them at the last federal poll. The Clive Palmer backed United Australia candidate lives in south-east Melbourne. The Green and Labor candidates never win and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party are yet to put up their hand.
The only potential threat to Drum, a Sheed/McGowan-style independent ambush, has not emerged. While it still may, the clock is running out.
And yet Drum, his party and Coalition partners are treating Nicholls like a marginal seat.
As the shadow election campaign plays out, heavy hitters have been brought through town in the form of former Nationals’ leader Barnaby Joyce and his replacement Michael McCormack. Agriculture Minister David Littleproud is here so often he might as well move in.
The cash is flowing with dozens of funding announcements — crowned by last week’s sudden reveal of $208 million for the long-awaited Shepparton Bypass — giving Drum a strong platform to campaign on.
But against who?
Part of the answer might be the Nationals’ abysmal showing at the recent Victorian state election. A primary vote of just 13 per cent, down from 52 per cent in 2010, was an embarrassment for the party, made doubly so by the amount of resources thrown at this electorate that election.
Part of the credit for the size of the Nationals’ state loss in Shepparton goes to the Liberals’ Cheryl Hammer who ran an old-school door-knocking campaign and the Shooters’ Murray Willaton who ran no campaign at all.
For her efforts, Hammer scooped up 27 per cent of the primary vote. Despite putting in no effort, Willaton earned 8 per cent.
Combined with the successful independent Suzanna Sheed’s 38 per cent, these three candidates slashed the Nationals’ state primary vote in Shepparton down to unelectable, minor-party status.
The Nationals are looking vulnerable across the country thanks to leadership spills, sex scandals and attempted-sex scandals. Issues with water have rural and regional voters justifiably outraged. Climate change is dividing loyalties. Once safe Coalition country seats are tumbling to progressive independents, usually women.
Yet it would take a monumental ‘‘Drummy-spit’’ by the people of Nicholls to dump the incumbent.
Drum’s primary vote would have to drop below 45 per cent with every other candidate preferencing him close to last as well. Neither is a probable scenario, let alone both.
Drum’s campaign staff would probably like to spin all the funding and ministerial attention as the actions of a good local member, and there is an element of that.
Rather than gatekeeper, Drum has proved a useful gate-opener, getting local political and business leaders inside the ministerial wing of Federal Parliament often.
Nor is Drum a typical politician. He does not trade in talking points and rarely follows ‘‘the script’’. In person, he can be affable, but never cloying. Occasionally he shows his steel when discussing issues he holds out as important such as water.
On-the-ground campaigning suits Drum. He certainly appears happier talking directly to voters than fielding inane questions from the media.
Nicholls could be viewed as one of the more boring races of the federal poll come election time with the ending a forgone conclusion. Traditionally, it would have been. And yet the safest seat in the country, if not in actual play, is proving rather interesting.
With the electorate in a grumpy mood, Drum will probably experience a swing against his huge lead when the election final plays out in May, but nowhere near enough to unseat him.
Myles Peterson is a journalist at The News.
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