Eileen Goodwin takes a look at Dunedin South.
If ever there was an election for Labour to win back the party vote in Dunedin South, this is the one.
And that is because of two women - three-term local MP Clare Curran, and new Labour leader Jacinda Ardern.
National is running a low-key placeholder campaign, despite speculation its success in the party vote might have prompted it to field a stronger candidate.
There is just one press release on National's Matt Gregory's website, announcing his selection.
Despite Ms Curran being a shoo-in, she is holding popular street corner meetings in a campaign given added impetus by Ms Ardern's leadership.
Ms Curran, who once faced rumours of a possible de-selection, proved critics wrong to become an effective MP.
During and after the 2015 flood, she took a sleepy Dunedin City Council to task, on the night itself, and in the aftermath. Her assessment of the problems was methodical and constructive.
Ms Curran sometimes gets offside with local leaders, but it tends to be in the interests of doing the right thing.
After news broke of the Cadbury factory closure, Ms Curran made sure the union was included in post-announcement discussions with city and business leaders, preventing the company and council forming a cozy working party that ignored workers.
A cheerfully gonzo approach saw her camp in the Octagon for a few nights in July to protest the treatment of young homeless mothers who had fallen out with the Ministry of Social Development.
Some charged her with running a political stunt, but the women's situations were complicated and not a simple cause to champion. Nor, in midwinter, was it the best time of year.
At one stage it was fashionable for commentators to decry Ms Curran's loss of the party vote as symptomatic of Labour's woes, but that was predicated on a stereotypical cloth-cap view of the area.
It is, after all, Dunedin South, not just South Dunedin, taking in Middlemarch, Mosgiel, and the Taieri: rural, growing, aspirational places.
And that is where Ms Ardern comes in. Her leadership resonates in right-leaning parts of the electorate.
Health, particularly the rundown state of Dunedin Hospital, is the biggest local issue in the election.
Compared with national averages, the electorate is older, whiter, and more likely to have no formal qualification.
Dunedin South voters are spoilt for choice for good candidates.
The Green Party is again fielding the assiduous Shane Gallagher, while former Ashburn Clinic manager Lindsay Smith is an articulate and impassioned representative for The Opportunities Party.
