Davenport consists mostly of a series of suburbs which have been historically safe for conservative parties since its creation at the 1969 redistribution. It was initially won by Joyce Steele for the Liberal and Country League. She was succeeded after one term by Dean Brown. Brown, a prominent moderate in the party, represented Davenport for 12 years before being challenged for preselection at the 1985 election by Stan Evans, a member of the conservative wing of the renamed Liberal Party. Evans' former seat of Fisher, previously a comfortably safe Liberal seat, had been made considerably more marginal by the 1983 redistribution. A large slice of Evans' former territory was shifted to Davenport, prompting Evans to challenge Brown. Brown fended off Evans' challenge and retained his preselection, but Evans contested the election as an independent Liberal and defeated Brown, preventing Brown's then-likely ascension to the Liberal leadership after the election. Evans rejoined the parliamentary Liberal Party not long after the 1985 election, and was re-elected at the 1989 election. He retired at the 1993 election, endorsing his son, Iain, for preselection. Iain Evans held Davenport from 1993 until 2014 and was a member of the Olsen and Kerin ministries. He was opposition leader for one year following the Liberal loss at the 2006 election.
At the 2014 election, Evans suffered a 2.8 percent two-party swing against him, and a reduced margin of 8.1 percent, with two-party swings against him of up to 8 percent in some booths, including the historically Liberal-voting booth of Belair which Labor won by three votes.[2][3] On 6 June 2014 he announced he would stand down from the shadow ministry and parliament within a year and prior to the next election. There was speculation that Evans was asked to delay his resignation and the by-election for a year due to federal Liberal government budget cuts and that there could be a "super Saturday" of by-elections in up to five Liberal-held seats.[4][5]
Evans resigned from parliament on 30 October 2014. A 2015 Davenport by-election was held on 31 January 2015.[6][7][8] Liberal Sam Duluk won the seat despite a five percent two-party swing, turning the historically safe seat of Davenport in to a two-party marginal seat for the first time.[9]
After a redistribution transferred a large block of Davenport constituents to nearby Waite, Duluk opted to transfer to Waite. Steve Murray retained Davenport for the Liberals but was defeated in 2022 by Erin Thompson who won it for Labor for the first time in its history.
