By contrast, in 2018 Ms Britnell lost nearly a quarter of the booths in the electorate, including all three booths in the traditional Labor stronghold of Portland and a number of booths in Warrnambool and Port Fairy.

The strong booth-by-booth result parallels a major increase in Ms Britnell's primary vote, which stood at 43 per cent with 83 per cent of ballots counted. In 2018 Ms Britnell garnered 32.4 per cent of the primary vote.

While Labor won the Portland booths in 2018 during Dan Andrews' landslide victory, Ms Britnell polled 25 per cent more votes than Labor rival Kylie Gaston in the same booths on Saturday.

The Portland booths also gave an insight into independent candidate Carol Altmann's obstacle to mounting a serious challenge in the election, with the journalist and community activist winning just a tenth of Ms Britnell's votes in South West Coast's second largest city.

Ms Altmann managed to pip Labor in several Warrnambool booths, having built her profile investigating the city council and local aged care organisation Lyndoch Living, but she still fell short of Ms Britnell, particularly and the larger booths in north and central Warrnambool like Temperance Hall.

Former upper house MP James Purcell had his strongest result in Port Fairy, but while he won the booth in 2018, this time around Ms Britnell doubled his tally in the picturesque fishing village.

But it was in the smaller inland towns that Ms Britnell pressed home her advantage. In booths like Grassmere, Hawkesdale, Noorat, Panmure and Purnim the incumbent was winning five or 10 times as many votes as her nearest rival.

This was again a contrast to 2018, where Ms Britnell was outpacing her rivals by much smaller margins and coming close to being beaten in some.

Ms Britnell also benefited from the addition of Terang to the electorate in a redistribution prior to the election, winning hundreds of votes more than her nearest rival.

Some of Ms Britnell's success, particularly in areas beyond Warrnambool, may come down to having had an extra four years in parliament to build her profile throughout South West Coast.

But the major spike in her primary vote contrasted with her neighbouring Liberal MP Richard Riordan, whose first preference tally plunged from 51 per cent in 2018 to 43 per cent on Saturday.

The five per cent swing toward the Liberals in South West Coast also stood out in an election where the Liberal vote didn't rise at all.

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