THE Nationals challenger Jade Benham is very likely to win the seat of Mildura, currently leading the count on 17,895 votes on a two candidate-preferred basis, ahead of incumbent independent Ali Cupper on 16,978 votes.
This article was updated live Saturday night as votes came in for the marginal seat of Mildura.
Scroll further down for Saturday’s blog and analysis updates, plus current voting numbers.
Latest results
Latest updates
11.32PM: Ali Cupper has regained some ground with the addition of early votes. Of 17,605 formal early votes, 51.4 per cent of preferences ended up with Ms Cupper over Jade Benham. It means the two are now separated by 768 votes with postal and absent votes to come, plus a small number of votes from Irymple South and provisional votes. Ms Cupper in 2018 was beaten by her Nationals opponent 650 to 479 in postal votes and 601 to 241 in absent votes, meaning her odds of pulling off a victory are slim.
10.06PM: The latest two-candidate preferred tallies from Donald, Hopetoun and Sea Lake have favoured Jade Benham, extending her lead to 54.5-45.5 per cent.
9.40PM: What’s left to count? We’re still waiting on both first-preference and post-preference votes from Donald and Hopetoun, plus all early, postal, absent and provisional votes. There were 17,140 early votes in the Mildura electorate, and 1933 of the 4806 who applied for a postal vote had returned theirs as of Friday. For context, that 17,140 is more than all the votes tallied so far. So there is room for a shift in how things are looking right now, but as it stands Jade Benham and The National are in a commanding position.
9.29PM: Jade Benham has just won Mildura’s largest booth, which we understand to be the Salvation Army location, with 51.3 per cent of the vote after preferences. The Nationals are now very likely to win the seat, having made up ground in city areas together with demonstrating their traditional strength in rural areas.
Rest of Mildura LGA counted
9.16PM: With the addition of Ouyen, we now have the results from the booths within the Mildura municipality but outside the immediate surrounds of Mildura. First-prefs: Benham 45%, Cupper 26%, Matheson 12%, Zigouras 6%, Milne 2%, Brymer 2%, Clements 2%, Stratton 2%, Sharpe 1%, Brougham 1%, Zayn 0%. After prefs: Benham 61.7%.
9.13PM: Jade Benham is maintaining her two-candidate preferred lead and appears to be in the box seat to win Mildura back for The Nationals. We don’t yet have any early, absent or postal votes, so there’s still a question about how those votes will behave. There’s also a couple of the larger Mildura booths yet to have two-candidate results posted.
8.54PM: Red Cliffs has just come in. Cupper topped with 29 per cent of first-preferences, but appeared at risk to get overtaken on preferences, given Paul Matheson (20 per cent), Jade Benham (20 per cent) and Glenn Milne (14 per cent) each gained a decent haul of votes.
Swan Hill LGA counted
8.36PM: We’ve had one of the larger Sunraysia booths come through in Jade Benham’s home town of Robinvale. Unsurprisingly Ms Benham led the way on first-preference with a 43 per cent share. With all polling places in the Swan Hill municipality portion of the electorate counted, the final breakdown was: Benham 46%, Cupper 27%, Matheson 11% , Zigouras 4%, Sharpe 3%, Brymer 3%, Brougham 2%, Stratton 2%, Clements 2%, Milne 1%, Zayn 0%. Benham was on 63% after preferences.
8.23PM: ABC election analyst Antony Green says Labor will form government. Still a lot to play out in Mildura though at this stage.
8.13PM: We could keep going back and forth like this for a while, but it’s back to Jade Benham having a nose ahead in the two-candidate preferred count. In terms of what’s happening with preferences in those booths in Mildura and surrounds (which matter because there’s plenty more Mildura ballots still to be counted), Ali Cupper has come out ahead at each of Mildura West (55 per cent), Chaffey Secondary (56 per cent) and Nichols Point (51 per cent) when it’s narrowed down to the expected top two candidates.
7.59PM: As more two-candidate counts come in, Ali Cupper has taken the lead over Jade Benham, 51.3 per cent to 48.7 per cent after 3347 formal ballots. But still plenty of counting to go, and it will be good to get a read on whether the Mildura votes keep hovering around that 40-40 Cupper-Coalition split on first-preferences, and then who ends up with those preferences.
7.39PM: We’re starting to get some Mildura booths through already. Ali Cupper has topped first-preferences at Mildura West, Chaffey Secondary and Nichols Point, with shares coming in between 37 and 40 per cent. However, if you combine the tallies of the two Coalition candidates (given a lot of preferences can be expected to flow between the two) the figures are also hovering around a similar mark. That suggests the final preference count could be close.
7.30PM: Spoke too soon! We have some booth figures (see the numbers above).
7.15PM: It doesn’t appear as though the Victorian Electoral Commission are posting results by polling place straight away, as they did on election night in 2018. This makes it a little harder to get a read on how things are progressing. But perhaps it’s worth noting Ali Cupper, after 986 votes have been counted, presumably all in rural parts of the electorate where historically she has polled weaker, is sitting on a 33 per cent share of first preferences. That’s slightly above her share of first preferences in the entire electorate in 2018.
7.10PM: As largely expected, the Victorian Electoral Commission have chosen to tally votes for incumbent independent MP Ali Cupper and Nationals challenger Jade Benham in the two-candidate preferred count. Because it will take a while for the full distribution of preferences to take place, on election night the VEC takes their best guess at who the final two will ultimately be, and sorts ballots according to which of those two voters put higher. Early days, among the small booths tallied so far, Ms Benham leads Ms Cupper 69 per cent to 31 per cent, but that should tighten as more results come in.
7.00PM: A scattering of small rural booths have had their votes tallied so far. The Nationals have historically been quite strong at such booths and this election doesn’t appear to be different. Jade Benham has more than 50 per cent of the first-preferences already. Incumbent Ali Cupper has 18 per cent so far and the Liberal and Labor candidates are just shy of the 10 per cent mark. Mildura councillor Glenn Milne, running as an independent, is still looking for his first vote, but it’s likely the booths so far have come from outside the Mildura municipality. We’ll get some different-looking figures as larger booth results start to come through.
6.35PM: Some very early votes have come in, so not much to read too much into. Jade Benham picked up 19 first-preference votes and Ali Cupper 13 in the first batch to come through.
6PM: Welcome to Sunraysia Daily’s live state election night coverage! The polls have now closed and vote counting is about to start. Expect to see results some of the smaller polling places arrive first.
