But in these parts it was traditionally hard, and rare, for people to come in from effectively nowhere on the political landscape and make a spark on election day.
On that front, Mr Shaw said National's candidate for Napier, David Elliott, faced a true uphill battle if he wanted to dethrone Labour's Stuart Nash, the incumbent.
Nash had made his mark, he said, and a major part of what would enter many peoples' minds was the fact that he resides in the city, whereas Mr Elliott lives in Havelock North.
"Yes, for constituency MPs they [voters] do look at that."
He said the general issue centred around claiming one's territory - a resident who has lived there for some time will likely always get there.
"Here, we take our personal MPs seriously."
Having tried for the Tuki Tuki electorate, and losing out to Lawrence Yule, and then pursuing the Napier seat was not likely to assist him at the polling booths either.
He said some would see it as him being "parachuted in" by National.
Mr Shaw said the Tuki Tuki race could be interesting as a familiar long-standing face (Craig Foss) was set to depart with Lawrence Yule stepping aside from the Hastings mayoralty to step into that National spot.
"If an old face has gone it can provide an opportunity for people to cast around for a new face."
He believes Mr Yule may have the edge there as he arrives with what National supporters see as extensive political experience.
"He has done the hard yards at local level - he has a lot of runs on the board in that respect."
He was impressed with the skills of his Labour opponent Anna Lorck, although weighing things up said she would have to be "outstanding" to take the established National seat to Labour.
"Yule may have some baggage though from the amalgamation issue," Mr Shaw said, although his local body experience would likely cancel much of that out for devoted National supporters.
"He is a highly experienced politician and they see it as wanting someone like that to represent you."
In the Ikaroa Rawhiti seat he believes the gap will close, although he believes incumbent, Labour's Meka Whaitiri, will retain it.
Labour leader Andrew Little had been "pretty bold" in some of his stands on the issue of Maori voting - challenging them to vote with one "straight ticket" rather than effectively split the vote into a party vote and an electorate vote, thus taking some of the potential sting out of the Mana Maori challenge.
"I believe the margin may close up there."
In terms of what the voting populace were likely to be looking for from their candidates was a clear vision on what Mr Shaw said was turning into a big issue.
Water.
"And particularly in your part of the world there - the bottling and selling of water to international corporations - that is a big issue.
"And of course the Ruataniwha dam and irrigation."
Housing was also very likely to get a strong look in because the pressure of rising costs and demand was now pushing out of Auckland and into the regions.
"There will also be the issues of regional development and employment growth - people will want clean and clear ideas from their candidates."
In terms of the smaller parties' involvement in the overall scheme of things that came down to who they would be drawing the votes from, and overall there was the unpredictable Winston Peters factor.
"The real unknown is about what Peters does," Mr Shaw said, adding that Andrew Little had worked hard on forging a good relationship with him.
There was also the Bill English factor, as while National had kept a fairly steady percentage figure on its polls place in the whole political landscape its leader's popularity as Prime Minister had slipped from the figure his former boss John Key had continually posted.
"There has been a significant drop because a lot of people were attracted by Key's leadership."
How that would filter through the voting populace across all regions "remains to be seen", Mr Shaw said.
On the whole, although it was still a fair journey to be travelled yet, Mr Shaw believed the status quo would likely continue across the regions' constituencies come election time, although some of the margins could well be closed up.