elected as a state premier in her own right, after Anna Bligh in Queensland. However, Keneally was a heavy underdog for most of the campaign. At one point, Labor trailed the Barry O'Farrell-led Coalition by 26 points on the two-party vote and Keneally trailed O'Farrell by 16 points as preferred premier. Despite Keneally's efforts to rehabilitate Labor's image, opinion polls and commentators had almost universally written Labor off by the time the writs were dropped. An election-eve poll showed Labor's support at a record low of 23 percent. The ABC's Antony Green estimated that Labor faced being cut down to as few as 13 seats. As a measure of how far Labor's fortunes had fallen, the party was in danger of losing seats it had held for over a century, and there were fears Labor would not be able to hold onto enough seats to form a credible shadow cabinet. In the 26 March election, the Labor government was heavily defeated, suffering a swing of over 16 points—the largest in a general election at any level in Australia since World War II. In the process, Labor lost many seats in its former western Sydney heartland, two of which fell to the Liberals on swings of 20 points. Ultimately, Labor was cut down to 20 seats (down from 48 at dissolution), its worst showing in over a century and one of the worst defeats a sitting state government in Australia has ever suffered. Many of the survivors saw their majorities more than halved. Keneally, for instance, went into the election sitting on a comfortably safe majority of 23.7 points in her own seat of Heffron. However, she suffered a swing of over 16 points, reducing her majority to 7.1 points. She was the first Labor candidate since Heffron's creation to not garner enough primary votes to win without the need for preferences. With Labor's defeat beyond doubt, Keneally resigned as premier and state Labor leader on election night and announced she would return to the backbench. Accepting responsibility for the worst defeat of a sitting government in NSW's history, Keneally said, "The truth is the people of NSW, who entrusted us with government for 16 years, did not leave us. We left them." On 11 June 2011, Keneally was granted by the Governor retention of the title "The Honourable". On 23 June 2012, Keneally announced her resignation from the New South