With just a handful of votes separating the Liberal and Labor candidates in Chisholm, retiring Labor MP Anna Burke has spoken out about the distractions created by two key controversies.
The battle for the eastern metropolitan seat is the closest in Australia, with Liberal candidate Julia Banks ahead by just 66 votes on a two-party preferred basis early Monday afternoon.
Ms Burke, who won the seat from the Liberals in 1998, said voters may be trending back to the Liberal Party. 
"I was more surprised than anyone that I won last time. I thought I was gone for all money," she said.
Ms Burke, the former lower house speaker, said the Liberal Party's campaign in the seat had focused on two state issues - the Country Fire Authority and Melbourne's sky rail.
"The Liberals had their [CFA] banners out. They were talking about it," she said.
Even though Labor is at risk of losing the seat by a tiny margin, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday continued to insist the ugly stoush between the CFA and the firefighters union had no federal election impact.
The electorate of Chisholm runs from Box Hil in the north to Oakleigh and Clayton in the south.
Although Chisholm falls within a Metropolitan Fire Brigade area, there is a CFA presence not far from the electorate.
Chisholm Labor candidate Stefanie Perri conceded the sky rail and CFA issues were distractions, but insisted voters raised other issues too.
Liberal candidate Julia Banks said voters in Chisholm were angry about CFA and sky rail.
"They're not state issues, they're people issues," she said.
The comments came as Labor strategists continued dissecting the Victorian result, amid claims Mr Andrews' botched handling of the CFA dispute cost Labor up to three seats.
Mr Andrews said voters were smart enough to distinguish between state and federal issues, with the two-party preferred result for Victoria one of the highest in the nation.
"The numbers prove we are stronger as a Labor state right now than we were in 2013," Mr Andrews told ABC radio.
But Labor critics point out the swing to Labor in Victoria of 1.7 per cent was less than half the national swing to Labor of 3.7 per cent.
Mr Andrews' detractors also question the argument that the potential for gains in Victoria was less than other states because support for Labor was already relatively high.
One senior Labor source said Victoria had produced the strongest two-party preferred result for Labor on the mainland at every federal election since 1993. The result this time, 51.9 per cent, was still well below the high watermark of 55 per cent in 2010, and was only marginally better than the 2013 result of 50.2 per cent.
Mr Andrews said the Dandenong Ranges swung Labor's way.
"If the CFA is the defining issue and we're going to be wiped out, how do you get very solid swings in McEwen, in Latrobe, the Dandenong ranges for heaven's sake," Mr Andrews said.
But senior Labor figures have also disputed this claim.
A booth-by-booth analysis of the seat of La Trobe - where Liberal incumbent Jason Wood is leading by 1306 votes - shows vastly different voting patterns between the flat southern and hilly northern parts of the seat.
The Ferntree Gully North booth, in the Dandenongs, for example, recorded a 4 per cent swing against Labor, Clematis a 4.3 per cent swing against Labor, and Beaconsfield Upper a 3.9 per cent swing against Labor.
In contrast, most Berwick and Narre Warren booths recorded positive results for Labor, including a strong 18 per cent swing in the Clyde booth and a swing of 11 per cent at the polling booth at Berwick Grammar school.