11:32 – We haven’t had any more updates for over an hour so it looks like we’ve got all we’re gonna get tonight. The main batches left are three of the five major pre-poll booths, plus the remaining postal votes. There are some other vote batches but they are small.
Right now I think the Liberal Party are very likely to win. They have a 2.2% lead, and I would expect that lead to widen. But until we get a few more pre-poll booths I am not certain.
To finish the night I’ve made this booth map. It shows the 2CP swing and 2CP totals across the election day booths.
The Nationals gained a swing at most booths, with enormous swings at the southern end of the electorate, which is closer to Taree than Port Macquarie.
The Liberal Party actually picked up support in the Camden Haven area, with a couple of really big swings.
When you look at the 2CP totals, the Liberal Party remained very dominant in the Camden Haven area. In the Port Macquarie urban area, the Liberals won the booths closer to the ocean, and the Nationals won inland booths.
10:43 – Looking at the primary votes, the Liberal Party is slightly ahead of the Nationals – 34.2% to 31.2%. My model expects this gap to widen slightly.
The Greens are on 10.7%, and ex-Nationals independent Warwick Yonge is on 12.8%. Legalise Cannabis and the Libertarians polled a bit less.
It’s worth remembering that optional preferential voting means that a significant majority of those ‘other’ votes are exhausting. 63.6% of votes have exhausted, with 18.8% flowing to the Liberal and 17.6% to the National. So with preferences mostly not effecting the race, it’s really all about the primary votes. The Liberal is leading by 1217 on the 2CP. 1072 of those votes have come from the primary vote, and just 145 votes added by the stronger Liberal preference flows.
10:38 – We now have two of the five large pre-poll booths, plus a small batch of postal votes and all election day votes, and the Liberals are leading on 52.2%.
I was asked if I would call this race, but I wouldn’t quite yet. I might change my mind once the other three pre-poll booths have reported.
It’s worth noting that the Liberal Party did even better on the 2CP (against the Nationals) on the pre-poll vote than they did on the election day vote. So if that trend continues, they should increase their lead. They did even better on the other votes, with 67% of the postal votes and 62% of the absent votes.
Yet while that is what we would expect, the Nationals did manage to win to narrowly win one of the two pre-poll booths to report so far.
10:28 – I’ve had to make a few modifications to my model where one or two booths hadn’t quite translated 2023 booths to 2025, and then needed to add some small interstate pre-poll booths to the list, but it’s looking good now.
9:40 – I’m home now. I’ll be doing a bit of checks on my results model and later will put up some maps. Right now the Liberals have a small lead with 50.6% of the 2CP vote. All election day votes have reported but only one early voting centre.
7:40 – I want to be clear that I haven’t called anything. With nine booths my model is only projecting 52% for Liberal.
7:25 – With eight 2CP booths reporting, the models are aligning. Liberal is on 55.5%. My models have them winning with 55-56%.
7:22 – When I just apply matched swing to the 2CP, I get the Nationals leading, but by less than the raw figures. It’s projecting to about 52% off seven booths. But when I calculate preference flows and apply those to the projected primary votes, it predicts the Liberals winning with 57%. I’m gonna investigate but it’s interesting.
7:11 – We now have four booths reporting 2CP and the Nationals have 53.8%. My model says this is a swing of 21.7%, and would project to the Nationals getting about 60%. But the primary vote figures look better for the Liberals.6:56- So I’m out tonight and forgot to bring my laptop but Maggie Perry at 6 News is using my results spreadsheet and I thought I’d give an update thanks to her data entry.
With four booths reporting primary votes, my model is projecting the Liberals to gain a 1.5% swing and the Nationals a swing of 7.3%.
With two booths reporting on the 2CP, the swing is 11.2%, putting the Nationals just ahead on 50.4%. Very close.
6:00 – Polls have just closed for the by-election for the New South Wales state seat of Port Macquarie, covering one of the larger regional cities on the mid north coast.
I’m out tonight so probably won’t be live-blogging much, but you can discuss the results here and I might drop in a little bit.
This is a fascinating contest pitting the Liberal and Nationals parties up against each other. The Nationals have dominated the Coalition on the north coast of New South Wales, despite Liberal incursions into local councils in Tweed and Mid-Coast and a large influx of ex-Sydneysiders in the area. Former sitting MP Leslie Williams quit the Nationals and joined the Liberal Party in 2020 over policies regarding koalas.
The Nationals want to win the seat back, while the Liberals won’t want to lose their sole foothold in the north coast. The 2023 contest in this seat was the first time we’ve seen a proper contest between the coalition parties in this part of the world in a long time. The Liberals won easily, but that was with a sitting MP who has now retired.
While we wait for results, you can read my election guide here.
No results yet, but some should come in soon.
I also won’t be doing any updates after 10:15pm AEST (11:15pm AEDT) as the Women’s League Cup Final is on at that time.
Very low-key by-election in my opinion. I expect a Liberal retain but honestly that’s about it.
At the moment it seems that the Camden Haven is voting Liberals but the rural areas and surprisingly also parts of Port Macquarie are voting Nationals.
Didn’t even know it was on
Current counts:
Primaries:
* Liberals leading: Bonny Hills, Dunbogan, Kendall, Kew (Camden Haven High), Lord Howe Island, North Haven, Port Art and Craft Centre
* Nationals leading: Johns River, Moorland, North Shore (Port) Regional (Port)
* Tied: Lorne
On TCP:
* Liberals leading: Dunbogan, Kendall, Lord Howe Island, Lorne
* Nationals leading: Coopernook, Johns River, North Shore, Regional
Just for some info, locally St. Columba Anglican School is called SCAS, and St Joseph’s Regional College is called Regional. To save me having to type so many letters, I’ll just use their nicknames.
The Liberals currently have 50.2% of the TCP and 32.4% of the primary vote, compared to 49.8% and 31.6% for the Nationals.
The booths in the Camden Haven area and in Harrington are clearly favouring the Liberals, likely because Robert Dwyer is from Kew which is in the Camden Haven. Meanwhile, the Nationals are dominating the rural vote outside the Camden Haven and in Port Macquarie it’s surprisingly mixed, with the more coastal parts favouring the Liberals and the more inland parts and the semi-rural suburb of North Shore favouring the Nationals.
I wonder if the Nats will win because their pre-poll vote harvesting efforts will probably be stronger than the Libs…
@Hughie it’s all lineball at the moment. Every election day booth now has first preferences and the TCP counted so it’s now up to prepolls and postals. Currently prepolls are favouring the Nationals while postals are favouring the Liberals.
That Port Macquarie Central Early Voting Centre has sealed it for the Liberals. This should show them that they should have a candidates in Richmond and Lyne. Also Hunter.
Nationals in NSW still seem to be in a funk with their branding, whereas the VIC and WA divisions have clawed back a little more ground. Think they need to make a faster transition to a party that represents the more cosmopolitan interests of growing regional cities.
Port Macquarie urbanising… this causing np.to liberal shift?
Yes and it’s for the reason I believe the libs could be competitive in Richmond federally
Liberal did best at coastal booths and scored swings in Laurieton and Camden Haven. These booths also happen to be Labor’s best ones. Labor got the lowest votes in Mid Coast LGA and inland booths.
The Nats won’t run next election as long as it’s Liberal held. It’s urbanising as it attracts retirees and sea changers, often from Sydney or other large cities.
Federally, Hunter, although inland, is a relatively urban seat. I do wonder why the Liberals aren’t running there.
@Votante Labor’s best booths are in Port Macquarie. Also, Laurieton is part of the Camden Haven. If you’re talking about the high school that’s in Kew (which is Los in the Camden Haven).
Votante I agree and I’m wondering the same thing about Richmond too
Yeah, I meant that neck of the woods – Camden Haven including Camden Haven HS and the booths around Laurieton. I should’ve mentioned that when talking about Labor’s vote, I was referring to 2023’s result. Labor voters might’ve voted Liberal and hence the swings to the Liberals.
Watching with some interest as there is a National/Liberal contest in formerly but not so safe Whitlam federally. This result will probably discourage the National although they have the far superior of the conservative candidates.
Incidentally Ben will you be covering “the big one” the Wests-Tiges Directors attendance election of all club members to fill the so called “casual vacancies” on Tuesday/Wednesday 25-26 March 2025 between noon and 8pm at Wests League Club Ashfield. The vacancy was caused by the banning of the hero of West’s epic struggle for survival in 1984-85, Rick Wayde, & the only 2 other elected Directors of West League Club for a total of 15 years by the obscure unelected four members debenture holders’ groups majority controlling Wests (now known as the Holman Barnes Group). [https://lnkd.in/gEamrh5m].
Haha no, I have a vague memory of being a Magpies fan in the 1990s but I don’t really follow league nowadays.
@roger what does this have to do with Whitlam? Whitlam is in the Illawarra/woolongong/southern highlands
John: the National/Liberal contest in coastal regional seats in NSW was the interest. These seats aren’t all on the north coast. Unclear if Nationals might enter Shoalhaven too? As for the Wests’ election the only interest is that if he was alive Gough would certainly have been supporting Rick Wayde.
Ben you have set me thinking because I thought that the Raues that I knew at Lewo supported the Berries?
“Lewo”? If you’re referring to Lewisham, that sounds about right. My grandfather supported the Bulldogs until he died, but loyalty to a rugby league team didn’t pass down to me. My immediate family also has links to a much more recent Wests Tigers player (at least he was one for eleven years) but living in Parramatta everything around here is Eels. Anyway the sports I follow are mostly AFL and cricket with a bit of A-League, so any league loyalty doesn’t have much to do with following the actual sport.
@votante I’ve made the same argument for Richmond/Hunter
@roger unlike the north coast the south coast is a lot more left leaning and therefore it’s not likely gonna be a Nat/lib contest on 2pp and only one of them is likely to make the 2pp against labor.
Ben Raue how different would the port Macquarie by election contest be if Warwick younge was the national party candidate because Warwick younge as a independent gave his preferences to the liberal party over the national party in his vote recommendation
Ben obviously he doesn’t like the national party that much or he wouldn’t be preferncing against them
Who knows. We don’t know how his preferences split, but overall preferences played a limited role. Maybe his voters would’ve been Nationals voters, but if he actually had problems other Nationals voters might’ve flipped to the Liberals.