Donald Trump is a name not often associated with politics in Kiama but rival Gilmore candidates Fiona Phillips and Andrew Constance are in rare agreement about the US President’s impact having an effect on the result in the federal seat.

Phillips was voted in for a third straight term after the Labor incumbent received a swing of 4.8 per cent on a two-party preferred basis to vanquish Constance.

He subsequently announced he would be stepping away from politics after a lengthy career of more than two decades as a state Liberal member and federal candidate.

Phillips said there was a nationwide backlash against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who was replaced earlier this week by Sussan Ley after he lost his own seat, and her read on the situation was that his campaign for nuclear energy was a massive turn-off for the voters.

“I think it was a range of things - definitely the Peter Dutton and the nuclear factor was pretty big. We've got comprehensive policies around cost of living relief and things that will really help build our communities like housing.

“It just became completely obvious that the Coalition didn't have the policies in place and they were just flip-flopping. From the local angle like a lot of people knew me and they told me they saw me as a hard-working local memberand ther’re things that build up over time.”

Phillips said the similarities between the Coalition’s campaign to Trump’s divisive tactics in the US backfired on them.

“We got all those corflutes dotted around the towns and along the highways that Labor was weak, woke and sending us broke with a picture of Anthony Albanese.

“I think that whole culture war was just such a turn-off. People rejected it. The amount of people that said the signs were just overkill, I like to think that people can see through that and I think they have.

“When I knock on people's doors, I ask them are there any issues you are concerned about and a lot of people said ‘my shares are all plummeting because of Trump’.

“They were starting to realise that Trump was bad for people locally and they could see a similarity between some of what Dutton was doing in emulating some of Trump's stuff.”

Constance stood up for Dutton, claiming the public persona was different to the real person.

“Peter Dutton's a wonderful guy. If you meet him and you spend some time with him, he's very different to the way he's been portrayed in the last couple of months,” he said.

“There's a responsibility that goes with everything together. And no one should feel marginalised in Australia. But I think it's a combination of things. I'm not going to sit here and just blame the leader.

“It's a team sport, politics. Everyone forgets that. You've got to work together as a team. You've got to get the best policies on the table.

“Those policies need to reflect the community and where they're at. And at the same time, you've got to listen to people.

“We got tarnished with Trump. Australia is not America. Everybody votes here. There's not a large part of the population that doesn't vote in Australia. And therefore our politics is different.

“I think it's really important that we don't go down the American path.

Constance hit out at the Labor for running a “scare campaign” of their own by insinuating that a Coalition government would eradicate Medicare, which he said has never been and would never be one of their policies.