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Click here for full display of Nepean by-election results
End of evening. Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh has a 13.5% margin over independent Tracee Hutchison, assuming the latter does indeed make the final count over One Nation’s Darren Hercus, which my system projects her as doing by 30.8% to 28.3% based on preference estimates. Marsh’s final margin over Hercus would likely be very similar. How pleased the Liberals should be about this depends on your starting assumptions: the party would have been appalled if told about such a result a year ago, but in the more immediate time frame would be greatly relieved. It suggests One Nation’s competitiveness in November should be limited to deep rural seats, and shortens the odds on the Coalition translating what seems at present to be a slender polling lead into a parliamentary majority.
10.35pm. The 14,000 vote block of early votes that came in on the primary vote about two hours ago are now in on TCP, which I suspect wraps things up for the evening.
9.45pm. Postals, which were heavily favourable to Liberal, have reported on the TCP, which has blown out the Liberal margin over Hutchison from 9.0% to 13.4%.
9.15pm. The last and largest election day booth, Rosebud, has reported on the primary vote, and I’m less certain now that Tracee Hutchison will get ahead of One Nation on preferences, that latter’s first preference lead now being at 24.7% to 21.3%. The outcome at the final count, to be clear, will be a Liberal win either way.
8.55pm. The latest ten-minute update had TCP results from Dromana Beach and the earlier batch of early votes.
8.47pm. A huge chunk of early votes — nearly 14,000 — just reported on the primary vote. This presumably included the voting centre in Rosebud, which presumably did a lot of business, because it’s substantially lifted the One Nation vote compared with the 2645 votes from the first early voting batch. The Liberal vote has dipped below 40%, and One Nation has a primary vote lead over Tracee Hutchison that looks big enough to be maintained, but not enough to stop them being overtaken when Greens preferences are distributed.
8.26pm. We’ve now got 5531 postal votes plus a primary vote result from Red Hill. The Liberals have topped 50% of the primary vote on the postals, and done well enough in Red Hill. One Nation’s Darren Hercus has now edged ahead of Tracee Hutchison on first preferences, though Greens preferences should push the latter ahead of the former, while Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh is sitting pretty on over 40%.
8.16pm. Five booths have just landed on the primary vote, including strong results for One Nation at Dromana Beach, Rosebud West and Tootgarook and weak ones at Sorrento and Shoreham. The gap between Tracee Hutchison and One Nation has as expected narrowed, now at 23.8% to 21.2%, but Hutchison seems assured to remain ahead on Greens preferences (in which case, hats off to the VEC for picking the right candidates for its two-candidate count). Either way, the 36.6% Liberal primary vote looks insurmountable.
8.06pm. My results system, which is more aggressive than it used to be, is now projecting a win for the Liberals after a very strong result for them on early votes: 45.5% out of 2645 added, compared with just 16.4% for One Nation, who have fallen below 20%. I should add a note of caution though: these early votes are likely either or both of the two voting centres from the Sorrento end, and the polling booths too under-represent what are likely to be the strongest areas for One Nation. Even so, we’re at a point in the count where One Nation would have to be doing a lot better than the current raw primary vote numbers (Liberal 37.8%, independent 25.0%, One Nation 19.8%) if they were going to be competitive, and it’s clear from the two-candidate count that Hutchison will not be competitive in the final count.
7.56pm. The regular ten-minute update brings only two further TCP results, which only serve to confirm that Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh will prevail comfortably in a two-candidate count against Hutchison. The alternative possibility is that Hutchison will land third and Marsh will go up against One Nation, in which case it’s no easier to see how Marsh loses.
7.47pm. The small Boneo booth, with 388 votes, has reported at the modest end for One Nation with 19.1%. Two booths are in on the two-candidate the VEC is conducting between Liberal and Tracee Hutchison, which may prove to have been the right candidate pairing after all. They are breaking nearly 60-40 in favour of Liberal, suggesting they are heading for a comfortable win unless One Nation has a surge in store from somewhere or other.
7.37pm. The Dromana and Flinders booths are now in on the primary vote, and the former is as anticipated better for One Nation, who have edged out the Liberals there by 29.5% to 29.1%. Flinders on the other hand has stayed loyal to Liberal, with One Nation not even making double figures. My system is writing off One Nation’s chances of making the final count, but I’m less confident about that than I normally would be because One Nation didn’t run here in 2022, meaning there is no historic data for them. Some strong results for One Nation in the Rosebud booths could change things, but they would have to be particularly good for them. The other unknown is how early votes are behaving.
7:25pm. A third booth, Waterfall Gully, is in on the primary vote. This is a better area for One Nation, who have polled 27.2% there compared with 20.6% in the first two booths. Even here though the gap is narrow, with Hutchison on 23.7% and set to benefit from the 12.9% vote for the Greens. Unless One Nation do quite a bit better around Rosebud and Dromana, they will finish third and their preferences decide the result, presumably in favour of the Liberals.
7:17pm. We have primary booth results in from Blairgowrie and Rye, both at the weak end of the electorate for One Nation, who trail Tracee Hutchison for second by 24.0% to 20.6%. My system is presently projecting that order will remain after preferences, but it’s doing so with no historic sense of the spread of One Nation support. No doubt correctly, it’s projecting the Liberals as more likely to win than Hutchison after the distribution of One Nation preferences.
6:10pm. It appears from the Victorian Electoral Commission results page that the indicative two-candidate preferred count will be between Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh and independent Tracee Hutchison, and not One Nation candidate Darren Hercus as I would have assumed.
6pm. Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the Victorian state by-election for Nepean. I will also be following the count for the Tasmanian upper house seats of Huon and Rosevears as updates on the dedicated post. The Victorian Electoral Commission advises we should not expect results until “approximately 7:30pm”. Counting of early and postal votes will take place this evening, as well as election day votes. Results will be updated every 10 minutes. The VEC does not break out its early voting results by location (it will rectify this at the general election in November), so the substantial number of votes that appear under “Early” will be a mixed bag of result Rosebud and Dromana, where One Nation is likely to poll well, and Blairgowrie, where they should be relatively weak.
Liberal party primary vote under 40% in a safe seat , likely shows liberal party candidate will be struggling in liberal party held seats to retain them , and unlikely to win many Labor and other non lib/nats seats .
Most of the Labor voters who voted for ON I’d suggest are from the over 60yo demographic.
Nepean is a unique electorate which differs in demographic from most other electorates.
The takeout from this by-election in my opinion is that ON is an overall net negative on the Vic Libs vote.
WB- End of evening update.
It suggests One Nation’s competitiveness in November should be limited to deep rural seats, and shortens the odds on the Coalition translating what seems at present to be a slender polling lead into a parliamentary majority.
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A good summary.
The vote in and around Rosebud was interesting with One Nation coming out on top. You would think that could translate to some outer suburban seats although I’d imagine it’s less culturally diverse out there
Lots of Labor voters appear to have voted One Nation, will they come back when Labor runs in November?
Hopefully Hutchison does better in the election off a longer preparation
@Rex
From memory, this is the seat with the highest average age in Victoria (55 or something). Make of that what you will.
Looking the 2022 state election
Liberal party primary vote 48.1%. – 2pp 56.68%
Labor party primary vote 32.64 – 2pp 43.32%
in November if the liberal party gets around 38.5% , and there is a labor party candidate , the liberal party candidate will not get the help in the 2pp , like in this by-election
the liberal party could lose this seat in November
The result is an anti-climax,isn’t it?
Libs won their safe seat and ON were shown their place that they are a pariah, Greens couldn’t break their 10&11% barrier even when Labor did not contest.
One Nation’s problem in Liberal/National-held seats is that in most cases (unless there is a strong conservative independent in the field), their only major potential source of preferences are the Liberals or Nationals, but to get them they need to push the Liberals/Nationals down to third. In most rural seats Labor will probably do badly enough that even with a big drop in their primary, the Liberals/Nationals will still be above them. In most cases I’d expect that to be competitive in a Liberal/National held seat, One Nation’s primary will need to be near or above 40%.
The SA election is instructive here – One Nation’s only wins (both very narrow) in One Nation-Liberal 2CP contests were in seats where the sitting Liberal MP had been disendorsed and was recontesting as an independent. Their other two wins came in Liberal-held seats where the Labor vote improved enough to push the Liberals to third, an unlikely scenario in Victoria.
None of this says anything (either positive or negative) about the potential for One Nation to win Labor seats in the outer suburbs or regional cities. In SA they had a different problem in those seats – the Liberal vote collapsed so far that there were few Liberal preferences to distribute (in most of the northern Adelaide seats where One Nation got within range, the Liberals were in single digits).
I do appreciate the failed ON candidate waving around a toilet roll and complaining about Liberal crap.
Where is Pauline, BTW? A no-show?
Is the Teal tide receding?
Is the Greens Party vote stuck in a quagmire?
Boerwar – It was hard for Hutchinson to generate momentum. If it had been a pure Liberal versus Indie due to Labor missing it might have got more, but the One Nation surge possibly kept some of the Liberal voters with the party.
Additionally, the Teals have never won a seat at state level in Victoria. The issues just don’t play to the Teals main areas of strength.
The Vic Greens do seem to be not making much ground. In an election with Labor, they should have got some swing towards them. Hutchinson and One Nation seem to have taken all the Labor vote. Again it could just be the territory – The Mornington Peninsula is not natural Green voting ground either.
The Greens Political Party pissed off a lot of ordinary Australians by supporting the ongoing pro-Hamas protests in the cities.
“Liberal party primary vote under 40% in a safe seat , likely shows liberal party candidate will be struggling in liberal party held seats to retain them , and unlikely to win many Labor and other non lib/nats seats “
I would not call it a “safe seat” Labor won it in 2018. This isn’t like Malvern which has always been safe for the Libs. Or Narracan which is now safe liberal compared to when it was marginal during the Bracks years.
It certainly leans Lib, but not “safe” i would argue the lockdown hurt the tourism industry badly in Nepean which explains why it swung badly last state election.
Libertarian commentator John Macgowan on the One Nation campaign:
https://x.com/john_macgowan/status/2050755778437599233
@Daniel T – I don’t think it was so much lockdown impacts on the tourism industry that upset locals in Nepean, more the fact that they were upset that the Mornington Peninsula was considered part of Greater Melbourne for Covid purposes and the Bellarine Peninsula wasn’t.
So let me get this straight
In a “blue ribbon” Liberal Party seat, minus an ALP candidate, the Liberal Party primary vote is well short of 40%
Noting they normally win this seat on first preferences
And this when the headline at The Age is 20 schools requiring urgent works
Well our tribe of grandchildren attend 4 public schools all of which have been the subject of major works or those works are proceeding
I would put that people see (actually see) what we see – and dismiss the attacks on government by media proprietors
The negativity of media may be doing damage – damage to themselves
Sloan Zone’s reflections on the Nepean result:
https://youtu.be/OsXCZ7NE9XU?si=bvgblAFuKavRemIa
(~ 6 min)
His verdict – One Nation did disturbingly well, getting into the final two, even though the Liberals in the end easily won.
In just over six months, Victoria will have a general election. With three parties likely to be getting between 20-30% of the vote, the election will be unlike any in Australian history, seriously chaotic and weird.
Latham in the comments with a “The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point” response.