9:39 – With all the results for ordinary election day booths reported, I’ve put together a map showing the two-candidate-preferred results and swings by booth.
There is a clear trend – while there were substantial swings to the LNP across the electorate, they were much bigger in the Hinchinbrook Shire that makes up the middle of the electorate.
If the rest of the seat produced swings similar to those seen in the City of Townsville, KAP may have held on.
9:14 – While there are still some votes to be counted, I can’t see KAP coming back and winning this.
8:40 – The Deeragun pre-poll and a batch of postal votes have been reported, and the LNP’s primary vote swing is steady on about 10%.
8:14 – We now have eleven booths reporting preference counts, and the LNP is leading with 52.8% to 47.2% for KAP. I expect this lead to shrink. It’s not over, but the LNP remain favourites.
7:39 – And just as I wrote that, Lower Tully reported. The KAP primary is down just 2.8% there.
7:38 – Just three of the ordinary election day booths are yet to report primary votes: Cardwell, Lower Tully and Rupertswood.
7:37 – The primary votes have rushed in, with 18 booths reporting now. The LNP’s lead, but they still hold a substantial lead. The LNP is on 38.4% (+13%) while KAP is on 29.3% (-18.5%) with One Nation on 15% (+10.2%).
7:34 – And that same booth has now reported its 2CP figure, and there was a 16% swing from KAP to LNP.
7:19 – The early telephone voting booth has reported, with KAP suffering a 19.0% swing and One Nation up 14.7%.
7:18 – In other news, a referendum was held today on deamalgamating Snowy Valleys council in south-eastern NSW. At the moment, the pro-deamalgamation side is polling over 85% of the formal vote, with most vote categories reported. This looks set to be an overwhelming victory, and will likely lead to the former Tumut and Tumbarumba councils being restored.
7:15 – We’re yet to get any two-candidate-preferred figures yet. It’s worth noting that KAP outpolled the LNP by 18 points on primary votes in 2024, 46-28, and ended up winning with a 13.1% margin, which is basically a 26-point lead by the same method. So KAP did gain some ground on the LNP after preferences, but not a huge amount. They mostly won thanks to a large primary vote lead. One Nation is preferencing the LNP this time, which could help them out.
7:12 – Deeragun has reported, the largest booth so far. The swing against KAP there is just 11.2%, with One Nation up 5.5% and the LNP up 10.9%. Overall this shifts my projection on primary votes to LNP 43.6% and KAP 23.6%. Those numbers are still pretty strong for the LNP.
7:02 – Eight booths have reported, and the LNP is on 43.8%, with Katter’s Australian Party second on 25.7% and One Nation on 19.3%.
That’s a swing of 19.5% to the LNP and 15.6% to One Nation, and 33.7% away from KAP. Good early signs for the LNP.
6:00 – Polls have just closed for the by-election for the state seat of Hinchinbrook in the north of Queensland.
I will be doing a few updates through the night and may decide to do a video for Instagram and Tiktok later tonight, but I don’t expect it to be the most intense election night.
If you’re looking for something to read while you wait for results to come in, you can check out my guide.
Burdekin has just reported preferences 657-503 to the lnp
Burdell
Cj I’ve also added in Winton and damnatjira from maranoa
That’s 56.60-43.40 a 15.4% swing
Murray upper 124-110 to kap 53-47 a 22.4% swing
Lnp have won Cardwell long pocket deeragun forest Beach and lucinda
8:20pm
No new primary votes counted since 7:50pm.
Unofficial 2CP count
LNP – 52.33
KAP – 47.67
Votes Counted – 6631 / 10487
If Labor finish under 10%, what are the odds Miles gets rolled?
Probly remote this is a seat labor were never gonna win and had to be forced to run candidate in.
“If Labor finish under 10%, what are the odds Miles gets rolled?”
@SCart
Not on a seat like Hinchinbrook. Labor weren’t even going to stand a candidate because some saw it a waste of resources. The KAP candidate is former Labor member. There would be some strategic voting going on from Labor voters.
But even so, failing to even crack double digits in any seat is insane for a major party in even the worst of seats for them.
Especially given that Labor’s primary is still only around 12% at most in in Townsville’s north-west. As someone from the Townsville electorate (a seat Labor likely needs to win back), it’s not all that demographically different from the Northern Beaches.
“Forced” lol
Having KAP sneak home might be a blessing for the lnp. I’d imagine next time around they would find a much better candidate
I’m “forced” to log off for now in the same sense that Crisafulli “forced” Miles to run a candidate. Family calls. Congratulations to the LNP, and the premier, whose investment in this seat looks seat to reap the ultimate reward. When I log back on I expect a 10000 word thesis by those who know on the topic of the LNP’s path to winning 85 seats at the next election, and why a terrible result in a seat not won since the Soviets were yeeting dogs into space for fun spells disaster for Labor.
Unsurprisingly, the swings are at their highest around DC and Wayde Chiesa’s mutual hometown of Ingham.
ABC has this as “LNP Likely”, at the moment.
Still waiting on the two largest booths to come in. Pre poll and returning officer.
@real talk il get chat gpt to whip something up
Lnp appear to have won the postal declaration votes
Having KAP sneak home might be a blessing for the lnp. I’d imagine next time around they would find a much better candidate
@John
Definitely not a blessing in disguise. LNP probably won’t be able to dislodge KAP if they hold on, and may as well look past Hinchinbrook at the general election. It will give three years for Mark Molachino to work the seat and build up his profile. LNP haven’t been able to dislodge KAP incumbents in the past. Mirani MP Stephen Andrew doesn’t count, he defected from One Nation, and the LNP wouldn’t have stood a chance without One Nation preferences in that seat.
The pre poll seems to 50 50 returning officer seems to be benfitting lnp
PB has called it for the LNP.
The one Labor voter in Lucinda is a chad
As have I. Will wait for the offiacial full count.
Long term you do wonder if KAP making enemies with One Nation could harm their electoral prospects going foward.
This is a disaster for KAP, without the incumbency or perception of a two-horse race they risk further losses of primary vote to Labor and ON who will probably be running more prominent statewide campaigns come 2028 and now the LNP have the incumbency advantage to exploit.
You’d think with a majority to defend and a redistribution making certain Labor seats more competitive or notionally LNP their remaining seats won’t come under attack but this sets an unsettling precedent and follows the trend of the Greens who have now hit the point where they have begun losing seats won at general elections when basically up until this year that never happened.
ABC website now has a LNP gain.
The LNP’s victory in the Hinchinbrook by-election is a huge victory for Premier David Crisafulli and it is the first government gain in a Queensland by-election since Mulgrave 1998.
So in other words the decision to run a mate and invest heavily in personal background family in the Ingham area worked.
One interesting observation from the by-election has been the performance of Family First. Not just the 2.17% (so far) of the primary vote, but the fact that they put the LNP second last, just ahead of The Greens.
For those LNP members in the Queensland Parliament who may have treated them as philosophical fellow travelers, there is less cover available. Chrisafulli has the political capital now to ringbark them.
The problem with both KAP and One Nation is that both rely on an autocratic approach to leadership, which attracts support in the short term but is a death sentence in the long-term. There is a disincentive to promote future leadership prospects who aren’t family members.
And the problem for the ALP is that there is no-one available to replace Miles. No-one wants to put their hand up to be the interim leader who gets knifed when the swing is on.
Why would Miles get rolled? There was nothing in this for Labor. I am more interested in what is going to happen with KAP now.
Gympie can we get a reaction to Labor’s come from behind win here?
Sure.
KAPs candidate was the Labor candidate and Katter came unstuck for a change. I was the only one saying KAP weren’t winning.
2CP will be interesting, KAP dropped 16.2% so far, one wouldn’t expect them to get much of that back on preferences.
Perhaps the result might cause Labor to have a rethink on the wisdom of tactical voting?
I also said a LNP win wasn’t out of the cards but didnt expect it to be that big of a swing i thought the lnp might scrape home but have won convincingly. The real test will be holding it a general election.
This working against Katter
Former Labor member running
Loss of Damettos personal vote
One Nation Preferencing the Libs.
All these 3 factors contributed to the LNP win.
The libs managed to get a job for Crisafullis mate. They now need to win over the local branch to support him.
And with this, the LNP’s majority has expanded from 6 to 7.
6-7!
6-7!
6-7!
@Corey There were 6 votes for Labor in Lucinda
Absolute disaster for Labor. Vote crashed into single digits.
One nation tripled their vote. LNP almost +50%.
The LNP turned Katters best area (hinchinbrook shire) into their best. Townsville and cassowary Coast very competitive petition. Anyway to determine the new 2cp margins? I the 3 areas.
Townsville is still where the majority of voters are.
Don’t read too much into this, but at the 2024 state election, based on 2025 federal election preference flows, the LNP would have won on a 12.42% margin if Labor were their primary opponents.
At this by-election, at the time of writing, such a margin between the LNP and Labor would be 22.89% assuming Steven Clare’s preference flow the same way as ON’s (he was once an ON candidate in Thuringowa).
Steven Clare polled very minimal so his preferences are insi
@SCart – LOL
This is basically the best performing LNP/Coalition brand running in possibly one of their best performing regions (trend wise at least) so a rare bit of good press for them which they sorely needed
Funny to think how after the 2017 election Labor held all 4 state seats based around Townsville and Herbert, now the LNP have finally claimed them all
Sorry obviously KAP held Hinchinbrook following 2017
Interesting to note the indicative preference flows so far:
One Nation are splitting 54.4% to KAP, contrary to their how-to-vote card.
Labor went 61.8% to KAP
The Greens went 51.5% to the LNP
Family First went 59.5% to KAP.
You really have to question the wisdom of the 900 Labor voters who preferenced the LNP over KAP. Purely mathematically, it’s against Labor’s interests for the LNP to gain an extra seat, because that’s one more seat Labor has to claw back in 2028. Even if all 900 had preferenced KAP instead, the result wouldn’t have flipped this time, but if the aim was to play the long game, those preferences didn’t help.
Looking ahead, the LNP have got themselves an insurance seat in the event that the redistribution takes out one of their regional seats, as expected. With a Labor seat almost certainly set to be abolished in the south of Brisbane, there will probably have two competitive seats to contest in the Caboolture and Springfield areas in 2028. The premier can’t spent four weeks in Ingham next election, but he won’t have to; he’ll have a member in place for three years.
Has there been any part of Australia that has trended my more to the right than the Townsville region in the last decade?
@Political Nightwatchman As long as both KAP and PHON are fighting for more or less the same voters they’re only going to continue cannabilising their own votes.
That’s why the Liberal and Nationals in Queensland used to have some guidelines around running in three-cornered contests – and still do to varying degrees in other states.
Drawing the boundary lines for an agreement between KAP and PHON would be a fun activity…
On a curious note I’m looking forward to seeing what the ALP leakage to the LNP will be.
@Adam Federally, nope.
At state level, either Mackay (went from a 112-year-long Labor to LNP held on a double digit margin in the space of one election) or somewhere in N-W Melbourne.
I get the feeling that One Nation is out to remove the market competition of Katter so that it has all of the further right playing field to itself. Once Bob goes, ON might try and get Robbie into the tent. Bob holding on in Kennedy might be part of delaying this plan. A clean handover to Robbie is not assured.
Was too tired to comment here last night but congratulations to the LNP’s Wayde Chiesa on winning the seat of Hinchinbrook!
I wonder where One Nation preferences went. The HTV card surprisingly put the LNP ahead of the KAP but George Christensen recommended One Nation’s usual position (KAP above LNP).
@real talk not really voters decide their preferences. The lnp and onp have obviously persuaded alot of people to abandon labor and katter. Perhaps some were rusted on labor voters but were willing to give the lnp their no 2.
Np real talk says 55-45 to kap still.