New South Wales State Election, 2015

[Talleyrand]

Map outline credit to Smid

[Talleyrand]

I think the Monaro result, weirdly enough, can be described as a "correction" from 2011 since there was an abnormally small swing there (so no inflated margin to be sliced at) and the popular ALP incumbent had been replaced by a popular NAT incumbent who had four years to create some goodwill within the community.

I actually like Steve Whan quite a bit, so I hope he isn't serious about quitting politics since Labor needs more strong regional faces.

[Talleyrand]

Unfortunately it seems like the Nationals might make it over the line in Lismore in the end, although it's still pretty close.

[Talleyrand]

The current count on the ABC is still an ALP v. National one, so it's too early to call, and Antony Green makes some good points in the link below.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2015/03/ballina-and-lismore-updates.html

That said, the National primary vote is very high.

[Talleyrand]

As for the other seats still in play, it seems like the Liberals will hold on to Gosford fairly easily while The Entrance is still close.

It should end up being around 55 seats for the Coalition in the end, so very similar to the scale of Bob Carr's re-elections.

[Talleyrand]

The counting today has been interesting. The Liberals gained in both The Entrance and Gosford, but overperformed in the former and underperformed in the latter. Now the former is basically a tossup while the latter has the Liberals very narrowly favored assuming late patterns hold up.

East Hills' Liberal lead has blown out to almost 800 votes, so Labor's best chance there is a court throwing out the result.

The Nationals are continuing to gain in the primary vote in Lismore, but Green-friendly absences haven't come in yet, and we don't know anything about the actual preference flow from the ALP.

[Talleyrand]

Gosford is now at 69 votes, and there are very few votes yet to be counted.

Disappointing about Lismore, but it'll be a very good target for the ALP/Greens next time around, especially if the popular incumbent (now 66) retires by then.

54 Coalition (37 Liberal, 17 National), 34 Labor, 3 Green, 2 Independent