There are flashing political billboards up at intersections and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has just rolled through town with his logo-emblazoned bus.

You could be forgiven for thinking it was federal election time in Rockhampton.

The central Queensland city's surrounding federal seat of Capricornia is held by the Coalition-aligned Liberal National Party (LNP) on a knife's edge margin of just 0.6 per cent.

A billboard in Rockhampton that flashes between the two major party's political candidates for the seat of Capricornia. ( ABC News: Emilia Terzon )

It was once a Labor stronghold, but in recent times this region of cattle grazing, rodeos, tropical islands and coal mining has become less predictable.

At one busy Rockhampton intersection, there is an electronic billboard that flashes between the faces of the local Labor and LNP candidates. It highlights how this is anybody's game.

At a Rockhampton pub this week, it was all smiles and selfies when the Coalition's Mr Morrison walked in for a beer during his tour of regional Queensland.

Not everyone's on board

As he left the main bar, one punter shouted after him: "You're working hard. Good luck to you."

Another welcomed Mr Morrison's bright blue bus and Australiana expressions with warmth.

"You keep rolling them in, Sco-Mo. Love your work," Rachel Ovenden said.

The local town planner is a staunch LNP voter would have voted for the party at the next election, regardless of who was heading up the Coalition. Yet she said the recent replacement of Malcolm Turnbull with Mr Morrison was a sweetener.

"He's more right wing than Turnbull who was more centrist. I agree with that," she said.

"Scott might bring more votes in from the far right, which I think is a very good thing."

Yet not everybody was on board the Sco-Mo Express.

Aaron Geddes's selfie with the PM when he walked into the Rockhampton pub. ( ABC News: Emilia Terzon )

Local man Aaron Geddes snagged a selfie with the PM when he walked into the pub. He was left unconvinced.

"I'm usually a Liberal voter but the way they've been going, kicking themselves out of power, they may lose a voter," he said.

"You know, if he had have done the whole Bob Hawke thing and skolled a beer, he might have changed my mind. But he didn't."

Mr Geddes is not the only one considering taking his vote elsewhere in Capricornia.

On the outskirts of Rockhampton, grazier Mick Alexander was a lifetime LNP voter until the last election, when he voted for Bob Katter's Australian Party.

Rockhampton grazier Mick Alexander was a lifetime Coalition voter but he's strayed in recent years. ( ABC News: Emilia Terzon )

He feels the LNP has forgotten small-time farmers and that his vote will be up for grabs again, when the federal election is actually called.

"If we could get a local Independent representative [who] could understand the issues, we could actually get them to take our concerns to Parliament. But you can't do that with these arrogant politicians of today."

There is no Independent set to run in Capricornia at the next federal election.

But a One Nation candidate — who got more primary votes than the LNP in the seat of Rockhampton at last year's state election — has now put his hand up for the federal contest too.

Nearby seat also very marginal

Just an hour away in the port city of Gladstone, the seat of Flynn also got a visit from the Sco-Mo Express this week.

The bus that's touring around regional Queensland. ( ABC News: Allyson Horn )

The LNP's Ken O'Dowd currently holds the seat by a one per cent margin. And One Nation had a big showing there at the last federal election.

Long-time Gladstone resident Gary Saunders has voted for the Coalition in recent polls, however he was nonplussed about Mr Morrison's visit.

"Not very excited. Not at all," he said.

He said the leadership turmoil in Canberra had put him off the Coalition and he was thinking of voting Labor next election.

"I think I'd be jumping ship and going to a party that's more stable. If you could say that.

"It's just more the party. I just don't like the instability there. Ken O'Dowd has been a fantastic member for Flynn."

Central Queensland in 'perpetual campaign mode'

When asked at a press conference about the sentiments of local voters, Mr Morrison was blunt.

"I think you've got to stop talking to Labor voters or the Greens," he said.

"Queensland LNP supporters and members and voters are coming back to the Liberal and National parties."

Yet the University of Queensland's state politics expert Dr Chris Salisbury described the Central Queensland voters' sentiments as indicative of what has been happening across regional Queensland and even Australia for quite some time.

"Both major parties are very conscious of a drop in their support base and a bleeding away of their votes to minor parties and even Independents," he said.

"You could look at these two electorates as microcosms of what is happening more widely across Australia."

Labor leader Bill Shorten is expected to visit central Queensland soon. ( ABC News: Nick Haggarty )

Scott Morrison is still downplaying suggestions that his regional Queensland tour is the start of a marathon election campaign, insisting it is simply a way to get to know Queenslanders.

But Dr Salisbury said it had all the hallmarks of shoring up votes in marginal seats before an election.

He said Queensland, with its marginal seats, had also been an early focus in previous campaigns.

"I really wouldn't be surprised to see Bill Shorten pay a visit to this area not too far away, in the wake of the Prime Minister's visit," he said.