The exit polls were in line with four opinion polls published on Friday and Saturday predicting the first-term Labor government would see off the challenge of the Matthew Guy-led opposition and placing several Coalition seats in danger of falling to Labor. The mood was edgy as Liberal supporters and campaign workers were gathering in the Veneto Italian Club in the heart of their leader’s Bulleen electorate. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Liberal state president Michael Kroger arrived shortly before the polls closed and told The Age he was concerned that three opinion polls this week had put the Coalition behind. "If they are right or semi-right what you have seen is the biggest spending spree in history and the government basically buying votes by creating the biggest South Sea Bubble of debt since Alan Bond," Mr Kroger said.

The veteran Liberal powerbroker was not giving up the fight but his party’s internal polling put the Coalition in a potentially winning position in enough marginal seats for an upset to occur, Mr Kroger said. Loading "There’s 12 to 15 [seats] which have been in play for weeks and some of those are coming our way, some going Labor’s way but a lot of them are bouncing around," he said. Mr Kroger said the polling confirmed that voters in marginal seats were concerned about the cost of living, congestion and crime, the three issues on which the Coalition has campaigned most heavily. Senior Labor figure confirmed the party was expecting to win seats based on early indications but would not estimate how many electorates they might pick up.

Labor has governed in Victoria for 15 of the past 19 years and Mr Kroger said it was difficult to deny it has become the natural party of government. "Illustrative is the fact that they get 100,000 to a union rally in Melbourne and 10,000 in Sydney," he said. "It’s the headquarters of the ACTU, it’s where the labour movement itself is the strongest, which creates even more challenges for the Liberal Party." Matthew Guy with his democracy sausage on Saturday morning. Credit:AAP A defiant Mr Guy predicted on Friday that the Coalition would take seats from Labor in Melbourne’s south-east, north-east and in the regions.

The party visited Ballarat repeatedly during the campaign and is hopeful it can snare the two Labor-held seats of Buninyong and Wendouree, where both sitting MPs have retired. Labor was long considered favourite to win Saturday’s election but polls widened in the final days before Victorians cast their last ballots. On Saturday Mr Andrews cast his vote at the Albany Rise Primary School in his Mulgrave electorate, which he holds by 4.5 per cent. On track to win: Premier Daniel Andrews appeared relaxed as he visited a Cranbourne West school on the final day of campaigning. Credit:AAP He then visited polling booths in Pakenham, Carrum, Bentleigh and Burwood in an attempt to sway the last of the undecided voters in marginal seats across Melbourne’s southern and eastern suburbs.

Labor’s campaign was polished and largely free of major gaffes and candidate controversies. By contrast both the Liberals and Greens were dogged by scandal. The premier’s performance in front of the cameras throughout the campaign was smooth and he was rarely ruffled even when pressed on controversies, including the red shirts rorts. In marginal Carrum on Saturday a relaxed looking Mr Andrews, who was supporting sitting MP Sonya Kilkenny, said the election had not kept him awake overnight. "You get to the point where it’s there or it’s not," he said. "We’ve done everything we can."

In Carrum, the Liberals believe their strong law-and-order campaign would be the key to picking up majority of votes, but the Premier remained sceptical. "I think you can try and scare people into voting for you but I don’t think that’s leadership, frankly. "I don’t think people warm to that, I think they would much rather have a sense that the person who is in charge has a plan and a determination, a conviction and an absolute resolve to deliver on it and face up to whatever challenges present," he said. The Premier kicked off the day casting his vote in his seat of Mulgrave, before hopping on the Labor campaign bus to visit key seats. His kids are back in Mulgrave encouraging voters to support their dad, the Premier said.

They were briefed by their mum and the Premier’s wife Cath about the key issues: "It’s just dad, dad, dad ... they might have even had vote dad t-shirts on." Greens Leader Samantha Ratnam was upbeat on Saturday night, saying her party still had hopes of picking up the bitterly contested Labor-held seats of Richmond and Brunswick. The Greens leader, whose party endured a horror campaign marred by a series of scandals including allegations of misogyny, sexism and rape, hit out at what she called dirty smear tactics and "preference harvesters who were damaging Greens’ hope in the upper house". "We’ve had a challenging few weeks, that’s for sure," Ms Ratnam said. "We’re really hopeful of making a breakthrough, we’ve campaigned really strongly in the seat of Richmond and we hope that they’ll become Green for the very first time.