Nationals likely to hold all seats as Liberals smashed
The Nationals have again outperformed the Liberals, battening down the hatches in their seats as their coalition partner experienced an electoral storm.
The junior coalition party has retained almost all of its seats and took large chunks out of Labor's margin in the Northern Territory seat of Solomon and Victorian seat of Bendigo, but were unsuccessful in both.
The regional NSW seat of Calare has been called for independent Andrew Gee who quit the party and sat on the crossbench over its objection to the Voice referendum.
But Nationals Leader David Littleproud didn't rule the party out of the contest.
"We're not out of the Calare fight either. Our modelling is showing its 50-50, we're still waiting for those numbers to come in," he told AAP.
The coalition needed to win Calare to win government, Mr Littleproud had claimed ahead of a Liberal wipeout and Labor claiming majority government.,
Nationals candidate Sam Farraway oversaw a near 20 per cent hit to the party's primary vote.
Independent Caz Heise has had a thin swing toward her in the NSW mid-north coast seat of Cowper, but Nationals MP Pat Conaghan kept his nose in front.
Ms Heise increased her primary vote by 5.5 per cent while Mr Conaghan's dropped by more than six, but the Nationals MP held the seat with just over 52 per cent after preference flows, with about 40 per cent of ballots counted.
"We knew it was going to be tight, no secret there, but he's done the work," Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie told Nine on Saturday night.
Bendigo and Hunter were targets but have been called for Labor.
But results for the former wouldn't be known until Monday with more preference data yet to be crunched, Mr Littleproud said despite the call.
Labor increased its lead in the Hunter, where the opposition had planned to put one of its nuclear power plants.
The Nationals nearly claimed Solomon with the associated Country Liberal Party picking up a seven per cent swing, but Labor's Luke Gosling just held on with 1.5 per cent.
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