LABOR will be happy indeed with its win in the Hunter electorate, and so it should be, having seen off the most concerted conservative push in some time to take one of this region's federal seats.
The rise of pre-poll voting as a major part of modern federal election campaigns gives all participants an extended chance to test the political wind, with thousands of voters in each electorate filing past a cavalcade of party and candidate volunteers.
Although COVID has forced the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to institute new distancing rules that have turned the old Saturday scramble into something more sedate, the same code does not seem to have applied at pre-poll, where the entrance to some centres became jostling pop-up tent cities of advertising.
The outcome from a fortnight of pre-poll was that National Party hopeful James Thomson, One Nation candidate, mining identity and publican Dale McNamara, and Independent Stuart Bonds, the surprise packet of the 2019 poll when with One Nation, all believed a conservative swing was on in the Hunter electorate.
The Thomson reception was at Singleton Diggers, where the Nationals had hired the biggest room, and had three decks of tables set up in one corner with "Media" signs attached to the end of each.
The Herald was the only attendee, while five media outlets were at Cesssnock Leagues for Dan Repacholi's show.
With the bulk of his supporters watching the national results on Sky - Joel Fitzgibbon was a commentator - Mr Thomson and his advisers were sequestered upstairs in a room to themselves, watching a bank of screens and hearing the increasingly pessimistic messages coming from their scrutineers.
Yesterday the AEC website had 69 of 71 polling places counted and almost all of 101,725 ballot papers having a preference count done.
Dan Repacholi's first preference vote of 36,842 was 38.99 per cent, a 1.42 per cent swing to Labor. Although the national figures yesterday were not final, the AEC had Labor winning 32.84 per cent of first preference votes, a swing away from it of 0.5 per cent.
The Coalition had a combined first preference vote of 35.61 per cent, with a swing against the Liberals of 4.34 per cent.
The swing against the Nationals was only 0.27 per cent, and 1.18 per cent for the Queensland Liberal Nationals.
James Thomson had a swing towards the Nationals of 4.55 per cent, taking 26,480 votes or 28.02 per cent of the first preference total.
Dale McNamara had 9.75 per cent and Stuart Bonds 5.71 per cent.
The non-Labor minor party candidates, including Clive Palmer candidate Geoff Passfield (3.91 per cent) had hoped a tight preference swap would minimise the Labor vote, but Mr Bonds said half of his voters ignored his how-to-vote card and preferenced Labor.
All involved will pore over the detailed booth-by-counts in the ritual election post mortem.
Dan Repacholi was a late pick for Labor, but he worked hard, reputedly doorknocking or ringing 18,000 voters.
He got Labor home in Hunter, and finds himself in government.
