How it all went wrong in NSW for the Liberals

The Coalition has suffered a historic defeat, with a statewide swing across NSW wreaking havoc. Here’s how it all went wrong for the Liberals.

Star Liberal candidate Andrew Constance looked set to fail in his bid to kickstart a federal career while sitting MPs David Coleman and Jenny Ware were bracing for a shock defeat as a statewide swing to Labor wreaked havoc across NSW seats.

Gilmore had been one of several “must win” seats for the Liberals that last night failed to flip, while up to another four looked in danger of being lost - one of those to the growing teal tide.

And as the nightmare for the Coalition became reality, the bloodletting among NSW Liberals began.

In a sign of a fresh internal feud, one moderate Liberal firmly pointed the finger to the right for the crushing defeat.

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“We’ve been sitting back, we haven’t leaked, we haven’t caused any issues,” the source said of the moderate faction.

“The right will need to own this.”

With almost 80 per cent of the vote in Gilmore counted, the two party preferred result showed Mr Constance well behind Labor MP Fiona Phillips with a Labor source declaring the ex-transport minister’s dream “dead”.

But while Ms Phillips was popping the champagne at her post-election party in Currarong, Mr Constance was last night refusing to concede given the large amount of postals and pre-poll.

It had been the former transport minister’s fifth attempt to enter federal politics, after two tries for Gilmore, two failed Senate bids and talk of a tilt for the seat of Eden-Monaro before backing out one day later after a public stoush with then-Nationals leader John Barilaro.

In the battle of the suburbs, the Liberals failed to claim the Labor-held seat of Werriwa - another seat they had hope in- with incumbent MP Anne Stanley looking set to win.

The nightmare continued in Whitlam where former Liberal MP Nat Smith failing to stop Labor’s Carol Berry.

The Liberals had a disastrous campaign in the western Sydney seat with endorsed candidate Ben Britton being dumped following comments about women in defence.

In the notionally-Liberal seat of Bennelong, Labor MP Jerome Laxale was on track for victory against Liberal candidate Scott Yung.

And in the most shocking result of the night, the Liberals were behind Labor on a two party preferred result in Banks and Hughes while hopes of winning the bellwether seat of Robertson also looked dashed.

A Labor source told The Sunday Telegraph the electorate of Banks would be won, but Hughes was still “too close to call”.

Gilmore Liberal candidate Andrew Constance looks set to fail in another attempt to enter federal politics. Picture: Hannah Farrow

And in another blow for the Coalition, the Liberal-held seat of Bradfield was under threat of turning teal with Climate 200-backed candidate Nicolette Boele and Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian neck and neck.

As for the other teal independent seats, the Liberals were no match for Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps, Warringah MP Zali Steggall and Wentworth MP Allegra Spender.

The teals had been hoping to claim their first NSW Nationals seat in Cowper, but were falling short during the early count with incumbent MP Pat Conaghan in the lead.

In the hotly contested seat of Fowler, independent Dai Le was ahead of Labor challenger Tu Le.

Labor Candidate Jerome Laxale and his partner Joanne voting in Denistone this morning in the Federal Election. He’s set to win Bennelong.

While concerns Labor MP Dan Repacholi might struggle in Hunter appeared unfounded, as Nationals candidate Sue Gilroy lagged behind.

Up in the north coast seat of Richmond, Labor was fighting a strong challenge by the Greens with comedian Mandy Nolan just ahead of incumbent Justine Eliot on primary votes.

However, Ms Eliot was expected to crawl back over the line after preference flows.

The Nationals had been desperate to reclaim the prized seat of Calare, with former NSW MP Sam Farraway quitting state politics to try unseat independent Andrew Gee.

But with almost 90 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Gee was well ahead.

The Liberals had a shocking first week of the campaign with Donald Trump announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs and internal polling forcing the Liberal leader to backflip on work from home policy and a pledge to sack thousands of bureaucrats.

According to both internal Labor and Liberal research, Mr Dutton never recovered with one senior Liberal source declaring the work-from-home policy as death knell in peri-urban seats such as Gilmore, Robertson and even outer-western and south-western Sydney seats such as Werriwa and Whitlam.

“People in these seats have to travel two to four hours to get to work,” the source said.

One moderate Liberal source called for a shift in party values “way away from Trump”.

“The electorate is in the centre,” the source said. “Our right wingers need to realise we can be a conservative government- economy, productivity, defence - but play a centrist role on key issues.”

Reflecting on the campaign, a senior Labor source declared it had been the first election ‘since 1993” when Labor had moved the dial during the election campaign.

“We had started at a low and improved during the campaign,” the source said.

Originally published as How it all went wrong in NSW for the Liberals