The Nationals have been around since 1920 — but are they about to wiped out?

Matt Canavan, who confirmed this week he'll seek to move from the Senate to the lower house, will be favourite to win the central Queensland seat of Capricornia, despite One Nation having a solid vote there before the party's national surge.

The bigger question is: how many of his Nationals colleagues will be in the federal parliament when he arrives in the House of Representatives in 2028?

For decades, commentators have predicted the likely demise of the Nationals. But this time, on present trends, things are serious, especially for the state party in New South Wales, but also federally.

One Nation is marauding through the Nationals' territory and picking up voting support and enthusiastic new members and volunteers.

Was the Farrer by-election in May a sign of things to come? Remember the now One Nation southern New South Wales seat was once held by then Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, the late Tim Fischer.

The Nationals' resilience, or lack thereof, will be tested in two state elections before the 2028 federal election: in Victoria this month and NSW in March.

Their fortunes are looking much better in Victoria — where the state Nationals have a distinct identity and One Nation is weaker — than in NSW. In that state, their prospects appear dire, with talk of a near wipe-out of their 11 lower house seats. The NSW optional preferential voting system will complicate the Nationals' challenge.

In Victoria, the Nationals predict they'll retain most of their nine lower house seats (with one seen at risk) and hope to pick up Bendigo East, from which former premier Jacinta Allan is retiring. (Nationals sources say polling shows the name recognition of their Victorian MPs can be worth around 10 per cent.)

Election analyst Antony Green points out that, at the 2025 federal election, the Nationals emerged with nearly 36 per cent of the Coalition's seats, which was "the party's highest proportion since the Second World War".

Looking over more than a century of history, "the Country/National Party always records a higher share of Coalition seats in parliaments where the Coalition is on the opposition benches. When the Coalition is in government, the Nationals' share of seats is always lower", Green wrote early this year.

The Nationals' ability to retain their seats in recent federal elections has disguised what in NSW have been big falls over the last two elections in their primary votes in most of those seats — something likely to come home to roost in the state election.

Between the 2025 election and David Littleproud stepping down as leader in March, the Nationals made costly mistakes in splitting the Coalition twice. This had the party appearing wilful and unpredictable.

They also lost Barnaby Joyce, whom Littleproud had ostracised, to One Nation. Despite being a disruptive figure in the Nationals, Joyce's jumping ship was a disaster for the party. He has given One Nation heft, and acted — counter-intuitive as it might sound — as a moderating force.

It is Joyce who sands off some of Pauline Hanson's sharper edges. It is Joyce who frequently jousts with ABC interviewers, when One Nation has declared a jihad on the public broadcaster and banned it from its functions. Joyce's defection has also given encouragement to some regional Coalition voters to look to One Nation.

Canavan may not be in the league of past Nationals figures such as Doug Anthony, Ian Sinclair and Peter Nixon. But he is tough, diligent, driven and a strong communicator. And, with a first class honours degree in economics and as a former employee of the Productivity Commission, he's economically literate.

He has the Nationals unashamedly following their own course, which means some differences with the Liberals, or forcing the hand of the senior Coalition partner. But he also rubs along with Angus Taylor, limiting friction to the extent possible.

One can speculate that if Canavan had Joyce (for whom he once worked) by his side now, the balance between the Nationals and One Nation might be somewhat different.

Canavan has been willing to call out Hanson and has used the "earthquake" of the US midterms to take another crack at her. He posted:

At its heart is the complete rejection of another failed Middle East war that has worsened the living standards of working people.

I was against the conflict from the get-go. […] Pauline Hanson said that the conflict in Iran was 'our problem' and that we should help Trump 'stamp out the evil that is happening throughout the world'.

This far out, it is impossible to predict how things will stand in 2028.

But Nationals sources say, on present indications, three of the party's four Senate spots are at risk. These are occupied by Bridget McKenzie (Victoria), Ross Cadell (NSW) and whoever runs in Canavan's Queensland Senate spot. The fourth seat is safe — because Queenslander Susan McDonald is not up for re-election in 2028.

A swathe of Nationals lower house seats in the eastern states are potentially in danger, on current trends.

The fate of individual Nationals MPs will depend, in part, on two factors: how well they've personally dug themselves in as champions for their communities, and preferences from Labor, which puts One Nation below the Coalition.

Despite the trends, some believe the Nationals will defy the existential threat they appear to face.

Australian National University historian Stephen Wilks, biographer of the Country Party's long-time leader Earle Page, argues the Nationals have several things going for their survival.

These include the longevity of the party, which has been around continuously at the national level since 1920; the strength of the rural-urban divide; the ability of the Nationals, as shown in the past, to adapt (broadening from a farmers' party to supporting rural towns); its populist opponent having less credibility when it comes to "governing"; and the special place that being in the Coalition provides to the minor party.

Wilks says One Nation can be seen as something of "an echo of the early Country Party".

"The very early Country Party occupied, very approximately, the place occupied by One Nation today — an anti-political party that eschewed conventional politics and saw itself as sitting well above the grime of the political game," Wilks says.

"Like One Nation, it was based more on generalised resentments than on considered policy."

It was when the Country Party went into coalition federally with the urban-based conservatives that it began to change, becoming less populist as it turned into a "party of government".

It could be said that those leaving the Nationals these days for One Nation are stepping back in time.

Michelle Grattan is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra and chief political correspondent at The Conversation, where this article first appeared.