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Western Australia has long been a fortress for the Liberal Party in federal elections.

The last time Labor won more WA federal seats than the Liberals was in 1990, when Bob Hawke won his fourth election with heavy hitters in his cabinet like Kim Beazley, John Dawkins and Peter Walsh.

If federal Labor is to topple this decades-long dominance and potentially influence a tight election, it needs to pick up three seats the most likely being the Perth metropolitan electorates of Hasluck, Pearce and Swan.

Labor, which holdsfive out of the 15 WA seats, has also been helped by the abolition of the Liberal-held seat of Stirling in the redistribution last year.

Its chances are best in Pearce, with a margin of 5.2 per cent, and Swan, with a 3.2 per cent margin, which also have both of their sitting members retiring.

The boundaries of Pearce, held by former Attorney General Christian Porter, were dramatically redrawn in the electoral redistribution and now largely overlap with the City of Wanneroo.

So it's probably no surprise that the two main candidates are connected with thecouncil;its mayor Tracey Roberts is contesting the seat for Labor against fellow councillor Linda Aitken.

Notre Dame University political analyst Martin Drum believes threekey factors the recent controversies surrounding Mr Porter, the changed composition of the electorate and Ms Roberts' high profile in the area play more in Labor's favour.

"It would give them an added chance, certainly beyond what they would normally have in that seat," he said.

Swan is the Liberals' most marginal seat, where the two candidates,chemical engineer Zaneta Mascarenhas for Labor and media commentator Kristy McSweeney for the Liberals,are both trying to win their first election.

Dr Drum also thinks the retirement of long-time Swan MP Steve Irons benefits Labor in this seat, because his popularity boosted the Liberals' margin by around 2 per cent.

Removing this margin makes Swan a more even contest.

"That's a 50-50 line ball before you consider any swing Labor might get against the Liberals," he said.

Winning Hasluck is a tougher job, with its sitting member, Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt,defending it against Labor challenger and former Woodside manager Tania Lawrence.

"If Labor gets a decent swing, they should get the other two seats," Dr Drum said.

"But if they do really well, they'll win a third, so this would be the cherry on top, I guess, for Labor if they were to win this seat."

But Labor will also have to defend its most marginal seat of Cowan, held by Anne Aly on a slim margin of0.9 per cent.

It has also changed with the electoral redistribution, absorbing a chunk of the abolished seat of Stirling.

So Dr Aly's challenger,Stirling MP Vince Connolly,already has some local recognition in the north metropolitan seat.

Another fascinating seat aside from the traditional Labor-Liberal tussle will be Curtin, where high-profile independent candidate and corporate manager Kate Chaney is challenging Liberal member Celia Hammond.

Ms Chaney is being backed by the Climate 200 campaign, which is supporting some high-profile, pro-climate and pro-gender equality candidates across Australia, including Allegra Spender in Wentworth and Rebekha Sharkie in Mayo.

Dr Drum says the geographically bigger seats in Perth, compared to more densely populated inner-city electorates in other cities, could make it harder for independents to get traction.

"Your work is cut out trying to raise your visibility across the electorate," he said.

"So it doesn't mean she can't win, it just means her challenge is certainly tougher than some of the comparable seats in Sydney and Melbourne."

While there's much speculation about the impact of WA Premier Mark McGowan's sky-high popularity on the federal Labor vote, Dr Drumbelieves there's plenty of evidence to show that Western Australians vote differently in state and federal elections.

For example, Mr McGowan seized power after the landslide election of 2017, yet Labor failed to win any new seats in the 2019 federal poll.

But the electoral drubbing of the WA Liberals at last year's state election is really hurting their federal campaigning, from their fundraising ability to the nuts-and-bolts issue of staffing an election campaign.

Theyhave also lost or are losing some of their highest-profile local representatives, including former Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Mr Porter.

Another new potential factor in the campaign is the 86,000 young Western Australians who will be able to vote in a federal election for the first time this year and who have come-of-age during the past nine years of a federal Liberal government.

Australian National University political researcher Intifar Chowdhury saidthe main issues that would influence the vote of these and other young voters includepolitical inaction on climate change, housing affordability and the treatment of women in the workforce.

Ms Chowdhury says her research shows that young voters, aged between 18 and 27, were just as engaged with traditional electoral processes, like political parties and elections, as older generations.

But the key influence on their voting behaviour were the issues which were front of mind on election day, a reason why she thinks the one-off cost-of-living payment announced in the recent federal budget will play well for the Liberals.

Australian Electoral Commission data from December show that one in five voters in Pearce and Swan is aged between 18 and 29, with 18 per cent of Cowan and Hasluck electors in this demographic.

Their vote is an untested variable in an election where WA, the last state to close the polls on election day, could determine who gets their hands on the key to the Lodge.

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Federal election 2022: Why the Liberal Party could lose its dominance in WA - ABC News