the party received over 25%. SA Best did, however, secure two upper house positions, with the successful election of Connie Bonaros, the campaign manager, and Frank Pangallo, Xenophon's former media advisor. Following the election, NXT Senator Stirling Griff claimed that polling indicated a 5% drop in SA Best's vote as a direct result of negative advertisements by two major parties as well as the Australian Hotels Association (AHA). He also claimed paternity for an election ad that had been described as "wacky, cheesy" and that that ad actually led to a polling bump for SA Best. Cory Bernardi's new party Australian Conservatives which merged with Family First Party with its two state incumbents Dennis Hood and Robert Brokenshire with the Australian Conservatives in April 2017 also ran its first election. It would not win any seats. Key seats for SA Best The table lists, according to The Poll Bludger website and based on the Nick Xenophon Team's Senate vote performance at the 2016 federal election, the strongest SA Best seats. Though most of the listed seats are safe Liberal seats, a third party or candidate with a substantial vote was believed to be more likely to be successful in a traditionally safe seat than a marginal seat due to it being easier to out-poll the comparatively low primary vote of the seat's traditionally uncompetitive major party, usually before but occasionally after the distribution of preferences (see 2009 Frome state by-election). If the third party attracts enough first preference votes away from the dominant party, then it is possible that the preferences of voters for the second traditional party will assist the new party's candidate to overtake and therefore defeat the incumbent on the two-candidate-preferred vote (rather than the normally pivotal two-party-preferred vote). According to The Poll Bludger, Nick Xenophon's SA Best candidates "will stand an excellent chance in any seat where they are able to outpoll one or other major party, whose voters will overwhelmingly place them higher than the candidate of the rival major party. In that circumstance, the more strongly performing major party candidate will be in serious trouble unless their own primary vote approaches 50%, which will be difficult to achieve in circumstances where approaching a quarter of the vote has gone to SA Best." Analysis in December 2017 from polling company Essential Research found SA Best preference flows of 60/40 to Liberal/Labor, indicating that the substantial