For the past seven weeks, national polls have remained reasonably steady, with most polls bouncing around between 51-49 to the Coalition and 51-49 to Labor. The most recent polls from Newspoll, Galaxy, Ipsos and Reachtel have all put the national vote in the 49-51% range.

The Guardian Australia poll of polls currently gives the Coalition an average of 50.35%. The Coalition would likely win on such a vote but it’s close enough that polling error could be enough to put Labor in front.

The picture gets more complex when you look at polling by state. William Bowe of Crikey has been producing state polling averages for his BludgerTrack polling average.

Labor appears to be on track to make gains in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia but the swings vary between states. The swing appears to be smallest in Victoria, where Labor has been relatively strong at the last two elections. Labor is also on track for a relatively small 3.1% swing in NSW.

Bigger swings are expected in Queensland and Western Australia. The latest polling suggests a swing of more than 7% to Labor in WA, where they have been very weak at the last three elections, although that swing has been dropping as the campaign has progressed.

Things are much more complicated in South Australia due to the presence of the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), which is running in all 11 seats. NXT are polling strongly enough to have a sizeable primary vote in every seat and it’s difficult to know how their preferences will flow if the NXT candidate comes third. Some state polling samples have suggested that NXT’s vote could be as high as 30% – while that’s unlikely, such a result would likely see NXT collect a large number of South Australian seats.

National polls don’t usually have enough of a Tasmanian sample but a recent Reachtel poll of Tasmania put Labor on track to regain the central seat of Lyons and had the two northern marginal seats of Bass and Braddon tied at 50% each.

We have also been flooded with a large volume of local electorate polls from Reachtel, Newspoll and Galaxy. Eighty-three individual seat polls have been published since the beginning of May. Some seats have been polled multiple times – six polls of Lindsay have been released since early May.

It’s possible to identify a general trend from these seat polls. There are a small number of Coalition seats that Labor appears to be on track to pick up but nowhere near enough to win a majority. There are then a large number of seats that are polling at 50-50, or close enough to be well within the margin of error.

Looking just at the most recent poll, Labor leads in the Coalition seats of Lyons, Eden-Monaro, Macquarie and Page by margins of 4% or more. They have slim leads in Burt, Petrie and Capricornia.

If they were to win those seven seats, they would be halfway to denying the Coalition a majority, which requires a change of 14 seats. Labor needs to gain 19 to win its own majority.

There are another six seats that have come in at 50-50 in the most recent poll: Bass, Braddon, Cowan, Dawson, Hindmarsh and Macarthur.

If all of these seats were to break for Labor, they would be within shooting distance of a hung parliament and, if the Coalition lost seats such as Cowper, New England, Mayo or Higgins to independents and minor parties, it would be enough to deliver a hung parliament.

There are also a string of seats with contradictory polling. The NSW seats of Dobell, Gilmore and Lindsay were reported as 51% to Liberal in the most recent Galaxy polls, conducted last week. But earlier in the week Reachtel polled all of these seats for the NSW Teachers Federation and Labor came out on 53% or 54%.

When you count up all of these seats where Labor has appeared to be ahead or in an effective tie, you don’t quite get to enough seats to give Labor a majority but it’s enough to make the election very close.

So in the end the electorate-level polling largely matches the national picture. The Coalition is in the lead but not by very much. There is a real chance of a hung parliament and Labor still has an outside chance of winning if the race breaks their way.