NSW election 2023: Polls are CLOSED! Perrottet and Minns wait with

The poll is now closed and the count is underway to determine the next Prime Minister of New South Wales.

Millions of residents came from across the state to cast their ballots, battling rain and shine throughout the day.

But there are nine fringe seats in particular that will be hotly contested and could help either party win the election.

Both Dominic Perrottet and Chris Minns are now at their respective camps, patiently waiting for the results to start trickling in.

Labor’s Mr Minns remains the favorite from 6pm, but the Coalition is quietly confident that Mr Perrottet has run a strong campaign to keep his job.

Experts believe the key to the election lies in Sydney’s west and southwest, with several fringe seats that could fall either way.

The regions faced particularly tight lockdown restrictions that could hamper Mr Perrottet’s efforts, but most of them have been held by the Liberal Party for at least eight years.

East Hills and Heathcote in Sydney’s southwest and south are both held by Liberals by a minute’s margin, but are now likely to be stolen by Labor.

In Heathcote, incumbent MP Lee Evans has a $5 chance of re-election, compared to Labour’s $1.15.

And in East Hills, a recent area redistribution has cut the Liberal margin from 0.5 percent to 0.1 percent, and Labor has a $1.25 chance of winning it.

Former deputy Liberal leader Stuart Ayres has a 0.6 percent margin in western Sydney’s Penrith, but Labor has a $1.30 chance of winning it.

Parramatta and Riverstone are both held by the Liberal Party with margins of 6.5 percent and 6.2 percent. Labor is the favorite to win both seats.

Holsworthy is a Liberal by a six per cent margin, but pundits are still predicting a tight race in the South West Sydney seat, while the Nationals have a mere 0.5 per cent margin in the Upper Hunter. The Coalition is still the favourite, trading at $1.55 compared to Labour’s $2.30.

And close to Leppington is an all-new seat, which is expected to vote Labour.

Golbourn has a Liberal margin of 3.1 per cent and the party is the favorite to hold this marginal seat in southern NSW, but the odds are tight at $1.65 compared to Labour’s $2.15.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by his wife Helen to the Beecroft Public School voting booth at his seat in Epping, Sydney’s northwest, to vote on Saturday morning.

Mr. Minns, along with volunteers, handed out flyers at Panania Public School, in the inner southwestern suburbs, as he prepared to cast his ballot for his Kogarah seat.

He will look to the results to roll into his seat, which currently has only a 0.1 percent margin after a recent rebalancing sent his holdings down.

Labor has held the electorate for 70 years and Mr Minns is confident that today will be no different.

“As far as I know, I am the only candidate running for the Kogarah seat who actually resides in the Kogarah electorate,” he said.

“So I’ll leave it to my neighbors and my friends and the people I grew up with in the St. George area to pass judgment.”

Mr Minns would be only the fourth Labor leader of the state to win against the opposition since World War II – ending 12 years in the political wilderness for the ALP.

Earlier on Saturday, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was seen handing out pamphlets at voting booths in the Sutherland Shire, while current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took on Balmain.

Online gambling group Sportsbet predicts Labor will take the Liberal Party’s East Hills, Parramatta, Penrith and Riverstone Sydney seats, plus Heathcote’s imaginary Labor voters.

That would leave Labor with 42 seats – five short of the magic number of 47 needed for a majority in the 93-member lower house, as the coalition is left with 41 seats.

This would make three Greens MPs king, along with former same-sex marriage campaigner Alex Greenwich, regional independents Greg Piper and Joe McGirr, and former Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party members Helen Dalton, Phil Donato and Roy Butler.

But the NSW Electoral Commission says more than 1.5 million residents voted early in the state, and 127,653 votes were also returned by mail.

Should Labor prevail, Minns, along with William McKell in 1941, Neville Wran in 1976 and Bob Carr in 1995, would be the only New South Wales Labor leaders to have won against the opposition since World War II.

Mr Minns would also be the first Labor leader of state since 1995 to win against the opposition when Labor was in federal power.

This would make Mr Perrottet the first Liberal Prime Minister to lose an election since the late John Fahey, making him the only living former Liberal Prime Minister to have been defeated.

A different Prime Minister has presided over every NSW election since 2007, with Mr Carr in 2003 being the last state leader to run in consecutive elections.