The NSW Liberal government appears unlikely to be returned after polls close on Saturday, but the state election is still set to be a close contest.
Whether Labor can secure a governing majority on the floor of the lower house appears to be the bigger question hanging over an election in which 1.2 million votes have already been cast.
Labor sources forecast that Chris Minns would either lead the party into government and claim a narrow, one or two-seat majority or fall short by the same amount and be forced into minority government.
NSW elections – with a hard to read electoral system – are famous for producing highly variable results across electorates.
A Liberal source said only something deeply unexpected would deliver the party victory, but added it was still in contention to form government on the floor of a hung parliament.
The itineraries of the two party leaders speak to an election taking place after a record-breaking 12 years of Liberal government, but with its numbers already whittled down by scandals, to a minority in the Legislative Assembly.
Premier Dominic Perrottet has been deep in Liberal territory for much of the campaign’s final days and was doing little to disguise the fact that political gravity was bearing down on the government after three terms when asked why he was in territory with such large Liberal margins.
Two seats north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, North Shore and Willoughby, appear to be in serious trouble from independent challengers and Mr Perrottet turned out in support.
Also on the campaign trail was former North Sydney federal MP Trent Zimmerman, who lost his seat last year in an election result in which the Liberals lost a core constituency.
Willoughby had been the seat of premier Gladys Berejiklian before she resigned amid a corruption inquiry.
“Glad (Gladys) has been a great servant to the people of Willoughby, and Tim has followed very well in Glad’s footsteps,” Mr Perrottet said.
It was Ms Berejiklian who made the seat into Liberal Party heartland after first winning it in an extremely tight contest in her first election, but its margin fell to just three from 20 points after she left and triggered a by-election.
North Shore (11 per cent) is properly blue ribbon territory and local MP Felicity Wilson was never a favourite with local Liberals after making false claims about living in the electorate, and could be in real trouble against community independent Helen Conway.
Mr Minns, by contrast, was in Ryde where another high-profile Liberal, former minister and popular and lightly eccentric Victor Dominello, is retiring, and Labor is confident it can knock over a nine-point margin.
Gladys absent
It has been the absence of Ms Berejiklian from the campaign trail that could be the strongest sign that the Liberals do not believe much can right the ship.
The popular former premier has mostly been missing in action, except when she briefly joined ally Stuart Ayres for a social media post in the seat of Penrith which hangs on a margin of 0.6 per cent.
Mr Ayres was “not at arm’s length” from the John Barilaro-New York posting scandal that engulfed the government and cost him his job, a senior bureaucrat testified.
But Penrith is stubbornly defying a state-wide trend against the government and could hang on.
“The only way to change the government in NSW is to vote Labor. Cast a positive vote for change,” Mr Minns said, in his final pitch to voters.
Greens MP Jenny Leong said the vote for the major parties was falling rapidly and “no longer can we see the idea that it’s a winner-take-all approach to our democracy”.
The minor party is hoping to reclaim its three seats and add one to its upper house tally.
A flurry of polling, much of it unpublished and sourced to industry groups, is predicting a rise in the One Nation vote.
