Sunshine state the key to victory for Labor Queensland is central to Labor's hopes of pulling off an until-recently unthinkable election victory on September 7. The party needs to pick up seats in Kevin Rudd's home state to offset potential losses in other states. Labor starts from a low base: it goes into the election holding just eight of the 30 Queensland lower house seats. It's banking on Mr Rudd's local popularity to recover its standing in the sunshine state, following a massive backlash against the party at the last election. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at his press conference confirming the September 7 poll date. Shortly after Julia Gillard toppled Mr Rudd as prime minister in June 2010, Labor suffered its biggest swing (5.6 per cent against) in Queensland. It was a big turnaround from the "Ruddslide" of 2007, when Queensland gave Labor its biggest positive swing (7.5 per cent). Labor holds five Queensland electorates with a margin of less than 5 per cent, including Lilley (3.2 per cent) where former treasurer and Gillard loyalist Wayne Swan was risking defeat before the leadership change. The LNP goes into the election with eight seats on margins under 5 per cent. Labor will try to wrest back the south-east Queensland seats of Brisbane (1.1 per cent margin), Forde (1.6 per cent), Bonner (2.8 per cent) and Longman (1.9 per cent), the latter of which is held by LNP young gun Wyatt Roy. Other Labor targets are Herbert in north Queensland (2.2 per cent) and Dawson (2.4 per cent), a rural seat covering Mackay and the Whitsunday Islands. Labor is also eyeing the central Queensland electorate of Flynn, where Rudd ally and former MP Chris Trevor will need to secure a 3.6 per cent swing to defeat LNP's Ken O'Dowd after holding the seat in the first Rudd government from 2007 to 2010. Two Queensland Labor MPs are not sticking around to contest the election. Swan's former chief of staff Jim Chalmers will run for the party in former trade minister Craig Emerson's southern Brisbane electorate of Rankin (5.4 per cent). The election also sees the retirement of Kirsten Livermore in the Rockhampton-based seat of Capricornia (3.7 per cent), where the carbon and mining taxes have been problematic. Former Howard government minister Mal Brough, meanwhile, is favoured to oust former Speaker Peter Slipper in Fisher on the Sunshine Coast. Labor will try to tap into dissatisfaction with the performance of Queensland LNP premier Campbell Newman, who cut 14,000 public service positions as part of a drive to slash debt and deficit. Labor has been rehearsing some of its key lines for months, including accusing Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of planning a Queensland-style austerity driving cutting services "to the bone." LNP sources argue Queenslanders will not be fooled by the Rudd revival, claiming that a re-elected Labor government would just see more division and dysfunction and that the Newman factor is overstated. Labor has always struggled to secure a sizable share of the federal vote in Queensland, rarely topping the 50 per cent two-party-preferred mark. But early polls have shown a bounce in Queensland and Labor strategists will be hoping it will be enough to claw back at least five or six seats as insurance against losses elsewhere.