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9.23pm. We’re still awaiting a pre-poll result from (I think) “Upper Hunter EM Office”, but that’s it for my commentary until the small hours. My live results page will continue ticking over tonight and over the coming days. A reminder that this is the only place you can find swings reported at booth level, that took me at least a week of fairly heavy-duty labour, and that donations are gratefully received through the “become a supporter” button at the top of this page.
8.43pm. Clarence Town now in on TCP, and it swung 22.5% to the Nationals.
8.38pm. Oddly, despite the Nationals doing quite badly on that Quirindi pre-poll, they got a 4.0% swing on two-party. I still have a big gap on my TCP swing projection and overall swing projection, which is presumably because two of the three booths where we only have primary vote results, Clarence Town and Singleton Heights, both had Labor down by about 17% on the primary vote. When their TCP numbers are in, presumably the TCP swing projection will shift in favour of the Nationals.
8.15pm. The Quirindi pre-poll booth is in on the primary vote, and it’s weaker for the Nationals than their overall election day result — down 6.8% as compared with 2.0%.
8.07pm. We’re at the stage of the count where the election day pattern is clear, and those booths yet to report results — 11 for the TCP count, but only one for the primary — are not going to change things much. The known unknowns are the pre-poll booths, of which we will get the Singleton and Quirindi results later this evening, and whether the dynamic there is different from election day; and how non-major party candidates go on preferences, which holds out at least the theoretical possibility of Labor not making the final two-party count, followed by who-knows-what.
7.49pm. As someone just pointed out to me on Twitter, the large-ish Clarence Town booth has the Nationals up 14.6% on the primary vote, so the conventional TCP-based projections should get a kick in their favour when its TCP result is in.
7.42pm. Projections based only on the TCP count — mine, Antony Green’s and Kevin Bonham’s — all show very little swing. However, my overall projection, which presumes to make use of primary vote results from booths where the TCP is yet to be reported, adds about 2% to the Nationals.
7.37pm. The largest booth to report so far, Muswellbrook Indoor Sport Centre, has recorded the biggest drop in the Nationals primary vote — 9.4%.
7.35pm. My preference projections are back to showing much the same splits as occurred in 2019, with no particular increase in the exhaustion rate. My projection of the Nationals swing/winning margin has accordingly come down a fair deal, without suggesting they’re in any danger (from Labor).
7.25pm. There’s quite a big gap between my two-candidate preferred swing of 2.1% to the Nationals, which booth-matches the TCP results in the 12 booths where they’ve reported, and my overall projected swing of 7.6%, which projects the changes in preferences on to the 14 booths that have so far only reported primary votes. Presumably the former figure will inflate as those 14 booths reports their TCP numbers.
7.15pm. Six booths now in on two-party. The exhaustion rate now looks higher than at the election, which sees off any hope Labor might have had that something would turn up on preferences. The gap in the primary vote swings in favour of the Nationals has also widened, the projected Nationals primary vote is now in the thirties, and my projection says 100% Nationals win probability — over Labor. But could one of the minor party candidates preference snowball their way ahead of Labor into second place?
7.12pm. I’ve just corrected a bug that was screwing up my projected two-party swing display. It’s predicting a swing to the Nationals of around 5%.
7.08pm. Observe my booth results map carefully and you will now see numbers indicating the two-party results in the two booths where they are available. Now I’m sure everything’s working, a plug for donations if you find this useful or interesting, which you can do through the “become a supporter” button at the top of the page — naturally there was a fair bit of work involved in all this.
7.06pm. Antony Green’s numbers basically align with my own, which is always reassuring.
7.03pm. Okay, now we’ve got two booths in on two-party preferred, and they are behaving very similarly to how they did at the 2019 election. That’s enough for my system to effectively call it for the Nationals, but I’d want to hold out for a few more booths. Note that this is entirely a two-party model, which is to say it rates the Nationals a near certainty of beating Labor — it’s a different story if another candidate makes the two-party cut. I may be being generous though in allowing that as a possibility, given the gap between second and third.
7.01pm. So going off primary vote projections based on the existing booth-matched swing, both Nationals and Labor are projected to be in the twenties (though only just in the case of the Nationals). I guess with that much non-major party vote out there you can’t rule out something surprising happening with minor candidates when preferences are distributed. Kirsty O’Connell, One Nation and Shooters are all just above 10%.
6.59pm. I observe that Kirsty O’Connell won the Wingen booth. You can see this by observing the booth results map at the bottom of my full live results page — the booth is colour-coded in grey, whereas other booths that have reported are green or red depending on who out of the Nationals and Labor has the highest primary vote.
6.56pm. A bit surprised there are still no two-party numbers — the NSWEC may be holding them back until they’re satisfied they have picked the right candidates for the notional count.
6.54pm. I believe we can be confident the final preference count will be Nationals versus Labor.
6.52pm. Primary vote results coming in at a fair clip, and there’s a fairly steady picture of the Nationals primary being down 3%-4% and Labor being down 5%-6%. If that holds, Labor needs to pull a rabbit out of its hat on preferences, on which we will continue to fly blind until two-party counts start to come in.
6.47pm. Eleven booths now on primary, and Labor’s drop is back to being a few points worse than the Nationals. Still nothing on two-party.
6.45pm. Ten booths now in on the primary vote and things looking a little better for Labor. But with the non-major party vote so high, this is very hard to read without information on preferences, which we won’t have until a two-party count comes through.
6.43pm. Given the booths in so far are from Nationals territory, they would have to be encouraged that their primary vote is almost holding up — Labor’s greater drop comes off a lower base. Other than that, the presence of a One Nation candidate is gouging support from Shooters.
6.40pm. Eight booths in on the primary vote now, and the Nationals still holding up somewhat better than Labor on the primary vote. Still nothing on two-party preferred though — maybe the preference dynamics will be different this time.
6.37pm. I think I’ve picked out most of the bugs, but disregard my projection until a TPP result gets reported. At the moment we’ve got five small booths in on the primary vote, and it does seem like Labor are down more than the Nationals.
6.30pm. That’s more like it. Two booths in. Only 201 votes, but so far, so interesting — both major parties down about the same amount on the primary vote.
6.28pm. Okay, the first booth is in and, frankly, disregard my results display for now — there’s a pretty big glitch in there.
6.15pm. Greens activist @seamus_polsci relates on Twitter that “the NSWEC has indicated that they will only be counting the election managers (Singleton early voting) and Quirindi early voting tonight (about 7,700 voters out of just about 19,000) rest will start counting from 9am tomorrow”.
5.45pm. Polls will close in 15 minutes. I’m in my usual state of semi-confidence about my live results facility working — it’s complicated on this occasion by the fairly high chance that the two leading candidates will not be those picked out by the NSWEC for the notional two-candidate preferred count, who, I think it’s safe to say, will be the Nationals and Labor candidates. Anyway, we’ll see how we go.
Some explanatory notes about the booth results map at the bottom of the page. Where no result is in for a booth (i.e. all of them at first), the location is indicated by a white dot. When a primary vote result is reported, the dot becomes colour-coded to indicate the party that won the primary vote. When a two-party result is reported, the dot turns into a number indicating the (colour-coded) winning party’s percentage two-party vote.
OPV isn`t going to be scrapped before the next NSW general election, so exhaustion of right wing preferences will continue to hamper the Nats. Whether or not it is artificial or not, if it is reducing the Nationals` 2CP vote it is a potential cause for ALP victory.
Given One Nation`s performance in Hunter at the last Commonwealth election and the potential for them to win a seat in the NSWLC, One Nation are almost certain to run in the next NSW general election, splitting the conservative minor party vote between them and the Shooters, rendering both unable to overtake the ALP (unless the Shooters give up).
The areas being lost to the north and west are strong Nationals areas and the areas to the south being gained are much better for the ALP.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/2020-21%20NSW%20Redistribution%20-%20Analysis%20of%20Draft%20Electoral%20Boundaries.pdf
The main question is whether or not the new Nationals MP increases their 2CP vote with incumbency.
The enrolment and provisional votes are in.