Analysis
VOTERS turned away from Labor's lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes in a powerful "rebuke" since the last election that some believe exposed a protest vote about her leadership style.
While the results of the lord mayoral election are not expected to be formally declared until the end of the month due to incoming postal votes that have a September 27 deadline, Cr Nelmes conceded defeat on Tuesday night.
After 10 years in the top job, she faced an impossible task to bridge the gap of 3146 votes to Our Newcastle's Dr Ross Kerridge, who will become the city's new lord mayor on October 3.
It is only the second time a popularly-elected sitting Labor lord mayor has lost an election, the last time was in 1999 when independent John Tate ousted Greg Heys.
The election before, in 1995, was the last time there was an all-out preselection challenge against the Newcastle lord mayor and sitting Labor councillors akin to what happened earlier this year.
Election analyst Ben Raue said earlier in the week there were not enough votes left for Ms Nelmes to find a way to victory, even accounting for a generous preference flow.
Mr Raue, of The Tally Room, said Newcastle had been one of the "most interesting council races in the state".
He said Ms Nelmes, who was first elected lord mayor in a 2014 by-election following the resignation of Jeff McCloy amidst a corruption investigation, appeared to face a protest vote.
"It's pretty clear that she's gotten a pretty bad rebuke," he said. "I think that is pretty clear when you look at the numbers."
While Labor suffered falls in its primary vote across all four wards, the drop in support for Ms Nelmes in the lord mayoral ballot was far more significant.
In 2017 and 2021 she received about 42 per cent of the primary vote, which is down to around 32 per cent this election, or a swing against her of about ten percentage points.
Labor's drop in support was the greatest in the lord mayoral race, followed by ward three where Ms Nelmes ran at the top of the ticket.
In ward three Labor's primary vote dropped from 43.94 per cent in 2021 to 38.96 per cent this year, a drop of almost five percentage points.
While many expected voters to check Ms Nelmes' power by taking away the majority she enjoyed during this council term, campaign insiders said none of her supporters seriously thought she was in trouble.
"I'm being honest when I say that this has come as a fair bit of a shock," a supporter said.
"I don't think anyone thought Ross would do this well and I don't think any of us thought Nuatali would lose this much support."
He said it was clear that many Labor supporters voted for the party in the wards, but opted for Dr Kerridge in the lord mayoral ballot.
"There is no other way to look at it," he said. "They picked Ross over Nuatali. We thought we'd get a bit of that, but not this much."
Dr Kerridge ran on a platform of "fresh leadership that will actually listen to the community".
Ms Nelmes declined to answer the Herald's questions on the issue of her leadership or the swing against her.
Civic election analyst and former Greens councillor John Sutton said the result supported the belief that Dr Kerridge had tapped into a real frustration with Labor's leadership.
"So there does seem to be in the figures at least some evidence to support that Ross Kerridge is right that there is some dissatisfaction with the leadership," he said.
"Maybe more dissatisfaction with the leadership than with the council itself."
Labor lost ground across all four wards, at the same time as the independents' support increased.
"The fact that the swing against Labor was the largest in ward three where Nuatali was running as a councillor kind of tends to support the theory of a protest vote," Mr Sutton said.
"The Greens vote has gone up a little bit, but not a huge amount, and the Liberal vote I think went up a little bit, but not a huge amount. They're roughly in the same ballpark as they were in the previous election.
"It's the Labor vote that has gone down and the Independent vote that has gone up very directly. I would think there are certainly messages in that."
Mr Sutton said Dr Kerridge, who quit the Labor party to challenge for lord mayor, would have a job on his hands leading the new council.
At this stage it's expected to be made up of five Labor councillors, two Liberals, two Our Newcastle independents and three Greens. Ms Nelmes will secure a position as a ward three councillor, but it is unclear if she will accept it.
Mr Sutton said the council would be more fragmented than the previous council, requiring a completely different way of operating.
"There's going to have to be a lot of negotiation and that can be a tough thing," he said.
Mr Raue said If it was a protest vote that Dr Kerridge was counting on, he "certainly got it".
He said the incumbents "probably should have seen change coming" because of the preselection battle.
"I remember looking at it thinking it was weird and that there was something going on," he said.
"It's one of those things that is in its own category, this result isn't about a general trend that applies everywhere."
While there is usually a "constant bubbling undercurrent of disgruntlement amongst Australian voters", Mr Raue said it's not easy to find the right candidate to beat a long-term sitting mayor.
"You need to find the right person in the right moment," he said. "People are not just going to vote for any random person. Kerridge has mobilised the support in the way others weren't able to do in the past."
A Labor branch member said a look at the three traditional Labor safe havens of Stockton, Carrington and Beresfield was telling.
"Generally there is no leakage at those places, mostly only locals vote there," he said. "Labor has always done pretty well at these strongholds, but not as much this time."
In the lord mayoral vote at Stockton, Ms Nelmes received 561 votes and Dr Kerridge was just four behind with 557. Dr Kerridge won Carrington with 490 votes, compared to 451 for Ms Nelmes.
At Beresfield, Ms Nelmes won convincingly with 746 votes, compared to 386 for Dr Kerridge.
In the 2021 election, Ms Nelmes won the vote at Stockton over Independent John Church by 26 votes, the Carrington vote by 215 votes and Beresfield by 230 votes.
"Last time we lost the lord mayoral election it took us 12 years to win it back," the branch member said. "I think it's fair to say there is a bit of anger out there that things have turned out this way."
Dr Kerridge told the Herald he believed his team could have done better in the wards if they had more time.
In order to have the Our Newcastle team name on the ballot papers it needed to be registered six months before the election, which wasn't possible because Dr Kerridge only announced he was running in mid-July.
"I think we ran an almost flawless campaign and I was blown away by the skill set that came around us that was just amazing and the number of volunteers," he said.
"But we did make one big mistake in retrospect, and that was the design of our how-to-vote cards."
Dr Kerridge said he received a lot of feedback that people found his team's how-to-vote card confusing.
He believes he could have gotten another candidate across the line.
"People were coming out telling us that they couldn't work out what to do because they couldn't find Ross Kerridge's name and the how to vote didn't look like the ballot paper," he said.
"So, unfortunately that caused a lot of confusion and I believe it impacted us."
