This is a question that will be giving Labor, especially, sleepless nights in the countdown to Saturday's election.

Labor and the Nationals attracted 78 per cent of the primary vote between them in Hunter in 2016. Three years later, that number fell to just 61 per cent as high-profile miner and One Nation candidate Stuart Bonds sucked up 21.6 per cent of the vote.

In last year's Upper Hunter state by-election, the Labor and National party candidates fared even worse, attracting a total of only 52.4 per cent of the primary vote.

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Labor's Jeff Drayton, a mining union official, won 21.2 per cent of the primary in 2021, more than seven points down on Melanie Dagg's performance in Upper Hunter two years earlier.

In the two years between the 2019 election and the 2021 by-election, support for the major parties fell a combined 10 percentage points in Upper Hunter.

This flight from the majors is outpacing a national trend. Votes for Labor or the Coalition dropped from 96 per cent in 1975 to 75 per cent in 2019 across Australia. Major-party support in senate votes fell from 93 to 67 per cent over the same period.

The Greens' lead senate candidate, Dave Shoebridge, said during a visit to the Hunter on Wednesday that he had seen a "deep well of dissatisfaction for politics as usual".

"The electorate sees a pretend contest between two parties that are largely on the same ideological platform," he said.

"People want change. They want to see a parliament that is actually listening to their real concerns rather than listening to some political party's corporate donors, and that's why both major parties are bleeding support."

In the region's other electorates, the trend away from the major parties has been less pronounced.

Support for the Liberals and Labor dropped from 84 to 74 per cent in Paterson between 2004 and 2019, from 81 to 75 per cent in Newcastle and from 84 to 78 per cent in Shortland.

The drift to minor parties left Labor with a slender three-point margin in Hunter after 2019.

Its margins were halved in Shortland and Paterson to 4.5 and five points respectively and, alarmingly for the party, its primary vote was down from 51 to 41 per cent in Shortland and 46 to 41 per cent in Paterson.

Meanwhile, the Liberals gained a couple of percentage points in both seats despite running almost invisible campaigns.

This time, the Coalition has dispatched a conga line of cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister, to pose for the cameras alongside Shortland candidate Nell McGill and Paterson hope Brooke Vitnell.

Mr Bonds, who is running as an independent in Hunter, predicted a close fight in the seat due to the depressed vote for the major parties and a big field of nine candidates.

The result in Hunter may not be clear by the end of Saturday night. In 2019, the preference count did not deliver victory to Joel Fitzgibbon until days after the election.

"It is very hard to say what is going to happen on the ground, and it is very hard to know where the preferences are going to go," Mr Bonds said.

He said declining union membership in the valley due to mine labour-hire agreements had helped fracture the Labor vote.

The Mining and Energy Union sent a message to members this week saying Labor candidate Dan Repacholi "urgently" needed volunteers to hand out how-to-vote cards at pre-poll and on election day in Singleton, Muswellbrook and Denman.

Mr Bonds said mine workers had started voting in larger numbers at pre-poll in Singleton on Thursday, and many were not voting Labor.

"I'm not seeing those hi-vis guys hitting those Labor how-to-votes as hard," he said. "It's been the best day for me. More like circa 2019."

Anthony Albanese tried to shore up the Labor base by posing beside Mr Repacholi in front of a coal truck at Mount Thorley last month.

Barnaby Joyce did the same at Rix's Creek mine on Thursday with Nationals hope James Thomson.

Mr Fitzgibbon said the contest in his old seat "could be tight", but he was confident Labor would win.

He said the Nationals had shown themselves to be "one-trick ponies" by repeating a "scare campaign" over Labor's climate policy.

"It's too repetitive. People have started to switch off," he said.

Mr Repacholi said Labor's past performance had nothing to do with him.

"I won't talk about the past because I wasn't part of the party then," he said.

"I'm a blue-collar worker. The Labor party is for the workers. We are the only ones that care about workers.

"We care about health, Medicare and childcare."

The Nationals have not been immune to falling support in Hunter, either. In 2013, the party's primary vote was 35.1 per cent, but this fell to 26.3 per cent in 2016 then 23.5 per cent in 2019.

Mr Joyce said his party needed to "keep our ears open" and "walk humbly".

"I'd say, well, recalibrate. reassess, listen and, if you need to change to match where the people are, then then that's what you do. As long as it doesn't make your nation weaker," he said.

The major parties' malaise has left Singleton businessman and One Nation candidate Dale McNamara contemplating a boilover victory if the preferences flow kindly.

He said voters had lost confidence in the major parties and unions.

"It comes down to trust, and I think a lot of those rusted-on families for five generations now are only hanging on by a thread," he said.

"I think voters are making their vote based on a lot of promises that haven't come through."

Muswellbrook resident Tania Cairns voted for One Nation at pre-poll on Thursday.

The 59-year-old said party leader Pauline Hanson "stood up for our freedoms during COVID".

"It's not really freedom if you lose your job when you don't get a jab," she said.

"The pandemic has had a lot to do with people moving away from major parties, but it has been happening for a while.

"I've been voting for Pauline Hanson since before COVID because she just makes sense.

"I used to vote for the Liberals, but they aren't the same party I grew up with. They don't hold the same values and are disconnected from real Australians."

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