Steph Cooke Retains Cootamundra In Landslide

IMAGE: Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke will likely win back her seat with an increased margin after securing a huge majority of the vote as of Monday following last Saturday’s NSW Election.

Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke has retained the seat of Cootamundra in a landslide result from last Saturday’s NSW Election.

Despite only 40.8% of the vote for the Cootamundra electorate having been counted at the time of writing on Monday, the ABC and most other media major political media outlets had called the seat for Ms Cooke, who had secured 80.5% of the two part preferred vote, and a 3.9% swing towards her.

When compared to all party and independent candidates, she had secured 69.39% of all first preference votes at the time of writing.

Labor’s Chris Dahlitz was the second most popular candidate for Cootamundra, but still a long way back, having secured 13.84% of total first preference votes, and 19.5% on the two party preferred basis.

Ms Cooke was also the overwhelming favourite at Cowra polling locations, securing 2737 first preference votes at the time of writing, being 68.9% of total votes.

Ms Cooke said she was deeply humbled by the results so far.

“It is an honour to serve, and to have had the support of the Cootamundra electorate over the past five and a half years,” she said.

“I look forward to continuing my work on behalf of our small communities over the coming term.”

She bucked the trend on what was a poor outcome at the election for the Liberal and Nationals parties, losing government comfortably to the Chris Minns led Labor Party, which will take power for the first time since losing the 2011 election.

While only 50.4% of the total vote state-wide had been counted as of Monday, the numbers suggested Labor would form a majority government, with the ABC having already called 45 seats for them, with just two more required to form a majority, and Labor leading the count in four seats that are still too close to call. The ABC had called just 25 seats for the LNP, however The Nationals looked set to retain 9 of the seats they won at the previous election, with the Liberal party suffering major losses and only looking on track to win 16 seats. Two seats were still in doubt for the Nationals, however they were ahead on the first preference vote count in each.

Fifteen seats across the state were still too close to call according to the ABC, with vote counting resuming on Monday after a day off on Sunday.