City of Newcastle lord mayoral by-election results
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Projected % |
| Aaron Buman | Independent | 8,852 | 11.29 | +3.97 | 11.33 |
| David Chapman | Independent | 3,910 | 4.99 | +4.99 | 4.99 |
| Rod Holding | Independent | 1,438 | 1.83 | +1.83 | 1.83 |
| Brad Luke | Independent | 18,669 | 23.82 | -19.3 | 23.45 |
| Nuatali Nelmes | Labor | 33,107 | 42.24 | +13.86 | 42.42 |
| Joe Ferguson | Australia First | 1,236 | 1.58 | +1.58 | 1.58 |
| Therese Doyle | Greens | 11,166 | 14.25 | +2.46 | 14.25 |
9:57pm – I’ve just added prepoll figures to the count.
9:50pm – Final post for tonight – I’ve broken down the figures by each ward of Newcastle council. Labor’s vote ranged from 36.3% in the second ward to 48.1% in the fourth ward. The Labor swing was clustered around 12-13% in three out of four wards, but was 17.7% in the fourth ward. The vote for conservative candidate Brad Luke ranged from 19% in the first and fourth wards, up to 31% in the second ward. The Greens vote ranged from 9% in the fourth ward to 19.8% in the first ward. The Greens vote increased by 3-4% in three out of four wards, but actually suffered a -0.1% swing in the fourth ward.
9:39pm – We now have results from all 47 ordinary vote polling places, and the result is reasonably clear, and similar to the figures from earlier tonight.
8:48pm – We now have almost two thirds of booths reporting, and we are still looking at Labor in the low 40s, Brad Luke second with just over 20%, and the Greens’ Therese Doyle around 14%.
8:22pm – Newcastle results still trickling in, with 19 booths now reporting, but no significant change in the picture.
8:00pm – In the Second Ward, which covers Wentworth Falls and other mid-mountains towns, the Greens councillor resigned from council most recently. At the moment the Greens vote is down from 22.7% to 17.7%, and the Labor vote is down from 36.9% to 27.3%. The Liberal Party polled 40.4% in 2012, but is not running this time. At the moment Labor is leading, followed by two independents on 23% and 20.2% each.
7:56pm – A quick detour to look at the Blue Mountains. In the First Ward (Katoomba, Leura and areas further up the mountains), Labor, Liberal and independent Robert Stock all won a seat in 2012. Stock resigned earlier this year. The Liberal vote has dropped 5.1% from 26.5% to 21.4%. The Labor vote has increased from 23% to 29.8%, and the Greens vote has increased from 22.1% to 28.9%. At the moment, it looks like either Labor or the Greens will gain a seat, depending on preferences from the Liberal Party and two independents. I should note that I haven’t built a booth-matching model, so I am comparing the result so far off 9/10 booths and no special votes to the total vote from 2012.
7:55pm – With about 1/3 of ordinary votes reporting, Labor is still on track for 43% of the primary vote in Newcastle.
7:44pm – We now have twelve booths reporting in Newcastle, and the picture is largely the same – Labor with a huge primary vote lead, followed by a conservative independent and the Greens.
7:32pm – We now have seven booths reporting, and Labor is still on track to lead by a long way on primary votes, and should be able to win with Greens preferences. The Greens on raw numbers are down 1%, but when you match booths this flips to a +2.93% swing.
7:22pm – I should also note that in Newcastle I am comparing Brad Luke’s vote to the vote for Jeff McCloy in 2012, as the leading conservative independent, which explains the 20% swing against Luke.
7:17pm – We have the first two booths reporting from Newcastle, and Labor is projected to end up on about 45.6% of the primary vote – which should be easily enough to win with Greens preferences. In Marrickville West Ward, the Labor vote and Greens vote are both up, with the Liberal vote down, so Labor should retain the seat.
6:00pm – Polls have just closed in Newcastle’s lord mayoral by-election, as well as in three other council by-elections in Marrickville and the Blue Mountains. I’ll mostly be covering the results from the City of Newcastle this evening. The lord mayoralty of Newcastle was held by Jeff McCloy from the 2012 council election until he resigned earlier this year after he was exposed as giving donations to a number of Liberal candidates despite being a property developer, prior to winning the mayoralty.
You can also check out the Tally Room guide to this by-election, which includes analysis of the 2012 election result and the history of Newcastle’s lord mayoralty.
McCloy won the lord mayoralty in 2012 with 43% of the primary vote, with Labor coming second with 28%. The main candidates are considered to be Labor’s Nuatali Nelmes, and independent candidate Brad Luke, who was elected to Newcastle City Council in 2012 as a Liberal councillor.
Results will be coming in tonight from 47 polling places, and I will be attempting to match results to 2012 booth results to produce a predicted final result. However we will not be experiencing a two-candidate-preferred count tonight, so the projections will only produce estimates of the final primary vote.
