This post contains an overall summary of the results of the 2026 Nepean by-election. The page will be regularly updated on election night. It will also be updated in the post-election period as election night votes are check counted and as postal and other declaration votes are included in the count.
Links: Result summary | Commentary | Swing Tables | Polling Place Results
- Last Update – Wednesday, 13 May 2026, 15:21 AEST – FINAL FIGURES
- Enrolment – 50,910
- Turnout – 83.6% of enrolment
Liberal RETAIN Nepean
Two-Candidate Preferred (2CP)
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LIB | Anthony Marsh | 25,642 | 63.2 | +6.6 |
| IND | Tracee Hutchison | 14,903 | 36.8 | +36.8 |
| ALP | …. | 0 | 0.0 | -43.4 |
- The swing columns for the Liberal candidate shows the change in Liberal 2CP % since the 2022 election.
- The Independent finished second at the by-election, the absent Labor Party finished second in 2022. This is why three swing figures are shown but the swing for the Liberal candidate is the correct like with like comparison.
- By-election preferences are flowing 63.2% to Liberal, 36.8% to Independent.
First Preference Count
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LIB | Anthony Marsh | 15,682 | 38.7 | -9.4 |
| ONP | Darren Hercus | 9,941 | 24.5 | +24.5 |
| IND | Tracee Hutchison | 8,533 | 21.0 | +21.0 |
| GRN | Sianan Healy | 3,805 | 9.4 | +0.6 |
| LCA | Renee Thompson | 1,192 | 2.9 | +2.9 |
| SAP | Reade Smith | 721 | 1.8 | +1.8 |
| LBT | Peter Angelico | 505 | 1.2 | +1.2 |
| EMI | Milton Wilde | 166 | 0.4 | +0.4 |
| ALP | …. | 0 | 0.0 | -32.6 |
| OTH | …. | 0 | 0.0 | -10.5 |
| Informal | 2,041 | 4.8 | -1.5 | |
| Total Votes / Turnout | 42,586 | 83.6 |
- Vote and Vote% columns are actual counts. Candidates are listed in descending vote order.
- Change column compares Vote% by candidate/party with Vote% at the 2022 election.
Early exit poll shows Liberal in front. To win One Nation needs to poll ahead of Liberal.
Exit poll from which booths?
Do you expect IND and GRN prefs to favour LIB over ONP? The LIB/ONP 2CP will be interesting when they do it.
COMMENT: Yes I do expect Independent and Green preferences to favour Liberal. But we will probably never know as I expect Green preferences will put Hutchison ahead of One Nation’s Hercus. We will see who finishes second tonight when all the votes are counted.
Exit poll from where?
COMMENT: My thoughts exactly. If it is from a party it has been leaked for a reason.
When are the first counts released?
COMMENT: Not long after 7pm I hope.
Your in luck the first results are coming in now
Tipping a close Liberal win here and win the by election in Nepean
Why are there no results in yet? VEC literally are counting one seat!
COMMENT: You first have to verify the number of ballot papers match the names marked off the roll and the ballot papers issued. If you have a few hundred votes at a polling place, it takes time. There are no small rural booths in Nepean that can be counted quickly.
It takes about the same time to count one seat as it takes to count 100 seats. Each booth is counted individually and reports results. The largest booths can take a few hours especially with so many candidates.
When are the first results due
I think there doing a 2pp between lib and independent why
COMMENT: An Independent finished second to the Liberal Party in the local Federal seat of Flinders last year. One Nation has never reached double figures in the area before and I’m not sure they’ve even contested Nepean before. There is no history for the VEC to lean on to make a choice different than the one they have chosen. If they have picked the wrong pairing, tonight’s count gets thrown away and is either re-done with a different pairing next week, or the decision is left to the official preference count in a fortnight.
One Nation might be in it if they are getting over 20% in Blairgowrie and Rye. That’s more than I thought.
Super interesting to see One Nation doing so well… They will fall short on preferences but it looks like a good showing so far! The question is how many ALP voters are they picking up. We won’t know how the ALP vote is splitting from tonight’s result. Ultimately it’s a question for the ALP if they need to shift to the right to appease their neglected outer suburban base. My feeling is that this becomes a factional issue for Labor in the medium term.
the werribee by-election which occured long before this surge towards PHON shows us labor are INCREDIBLY vulnerable in those formerly safe “working class” outer suburb seats. Labor might actually have to DO something great to keep the voters onside
If the Liberal candidate is losing primary votes to One Nation won’t grumpy Liberal voters give their second preferences to Anthony Marsh and , in effect , return to the fold .Preferences will be the key to who wins the seat and most likely it will be Anthony Marsh. Unless there’s going to be some sort of irrational bitterness at play with voters .who want to mar preference flows .
COMENT: The relevant point is that Marsh is 20% of whoever finishes second and third. Given whoever finishes third will favour Marsh on preferences, he can’t lose. It’s his primary vote that has won the contest.
The independent will likely finish 2nd on these numbers.
Greens are preferencing the independent. Once they are eliminated, One Nation will fall to third. One Nations vote is primarily favouring Liberals, so yes, Marsh will get over the line without too much problem.
Oh irony of ironies! On those first preference results (at 8:46 pm) one can expect the Liberal to win on the strength of Greens preferences alone.
COMMENT: They will win because they have by far the highest first preference vote. Whoever finishes second, they can’t win because third placed candidate’s preferences will favour the Liberal.
Why isn’t the 2CP between Liberal and One Nation, when One Nation is ahead of the Independent?
COMMENT: The choice is made beforehand and can’t be changed on the night. I think the choice is correct as Green preferences will almost certainly favour Hutchison and put her back into second place ahead of Hercus. In the end it is clear the Liberals will win. Who finishes second will be determined by the formal distribution of preferences.
Look this is going to be controversial and I’m probably wrong in this regard.
But there is the chance one nation voters since it is an anti-establishment protest vote could, particularly on prepolls and postals could go towards Tracee Hutchison much more strongly than expected
COMMENT: Given the preferences are consistently above 57%, and Green preferences would favour Hutchison, One Nation preferences must be flowingly solidly to the Liberal Party.
Yes indeed I agree. My comment was focused more on future elections.
Good Blog Antony. Driving from Como to Verona and your reporting and analysis is top notch for a couple of old decrepit Libs. Keep it up.
I agree the commentary is painful to read. That’s why I deleted Facebook and Instagram recently. Reading left vs right argue with one another and society so divided does your head in. Was legit affecting my wellbeing! Since I deleted them I’m returning to normal again and no longer seeing the worst in people!
COMMENT: I’ve since removed most party political comments as they just encouraged more party political comments.
I agree and I’m thinking of doing the same thing, not good for our mental wellbeing.
Australia’s ridiculous system of preferences ai work again.
COMMENT: The candidate who won after preferences also had the highest first preferences, as is the case in around 90% of seats. I have no idea why you think the result in Nepean is ridiculous. I presume you think someone else should have won but I’m not sure how on the first preference result.
Interesting to watch the swing tables by booth. While there was a notable primary swing to ONP, the 2PP vote showed increased to the Liberals in all but 2 booths, and then only marginally negative.
While a diverse electorate, I think this shows that at least in the O P enii I nails the ONP view ONP vote is spread thin.
While in a more homogenous social setting as SA where ONP managed to win seats, I would be v surprised to see ONP winning 2PP in Vic seats, especially non metropolitan seats.
Why haven’t they changed the 2CP to ON and Lib. Seems incredibly bias and arrogant to assume the left or independent automatically gets 2CP consideration. Happened throughout SA too. This alone is enough for me to switch right.
COMMENT: You mean that despite it being clear who has won, you want the VEC to completely re-do the count to try and work out who finished second. It is not clear that even undertaking a three-candidate preferred count will sort out who will finish second.
Starting Monday 11 May there will be a full distribution of preferences. This is required by law to determine and declare the winning candidate, even though it is obvious from the primary votes who will win. This distribution will also resolve who finished second after preferences. Mucking around trying to work out who finished second this week can only delay the declaration of the winner and delay the count that will definitively determine who finished second.
Yea, sure it was clear, but it’s the principle around how ABC and other pundits broadcast and advertise the race on forums, dashboards and TV portraying this misguided perception that ‘outsiders’ aren’t part of the equation or contention. But that will change I expect.
COMMENT: The decision on which two candidates will be chosen for the indicative preference count is made by the Electoral Commission. The decision has to be made before hand and can’t be changed on the night. Until quite late on Saturday night, it appeared the Commission had chosen the correct pairing. When every pre-poll centre had reported, One Nation reached second place on the primary count. It is no longer clear who will finish second after preferences and we won’t know until the lowest polling four candidates and the Green candidate are excluded during next week’s distribution of preferences. But there is no doubt about who will finish first, which is the reason why the indicative preference count is undertaken.
Despite outside observers being clear about the winner, under law the VEC still will not declare a winner until next week when the full distribution of preferences is undertaken. At that point we will also discover who finishes second. As I kept writing on election night, the Liberal candidate is far enough ahead of all other candidates to be uncatchable. From the count it is clear who has won, and after the distribution of preferences, that win will be legally confirmed. And the same count that confirms the legal winner will also determine who is second after preferences.