She is not as polished as her interstate counterparts and professes not to like her field of work.
But in eight years, Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler has gone from a newly-elected MP to the pressures of the top job.
"I got into politics later in life," the NT Labor leader and former school principal has said.
"I don't actually like politics, and I don't like the politics of politics at all."
Ms Lawler has had to hit the ground running after taking on the top job in December 2023 when Natasha Fyles resigned over undisclosed shares.
Facing a groundswell of disillusionment from voters, recent polls have Labor slightly in front ahead of Saturday's election.
However they will need to hold onto a number of seats they only narrowly won in 2020.
Hailing from the Labor right, Ms Lawler has a more conservative approach than her predecessor and has backed major gas and Middle Arm development projects.
Labor promised at the last election not to support onshore hydraulic fracturing and faced subsequent pressure from grassroots members, who described plans to develop the Beetaloo Basin as an "indictment" of the party's morals and a "direct result of capitalistic greed".
The government has since reversed its position and recently signed a commercial deal with US company Tamboran Resources to purchase fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin.
Ms Lawler retained her seat of Drysdale with a 5.7 per cent margin at the 2020 election as Labor claimed a landslide victory.
Few had believed Labor would win the redistributed seat in 2016, after incumbent and now Country Liberal Party leader Lia Finocchiaro opted to run for the newly-established electorate of Spillett.
Labor had only claimed the seat once since its inception two decades earlier.
To lead her party to a third term, Ms Lawler will have to overcome the shadow cast by her predecessors.
She is the NT's third chief minister in as many years after Ms Fyles and Michael Gunner, who led Labor to consecutive election triumphs before resigning in 2022 saying he wanted to spend more time with family.
