A Climate 200-backed independent has all but secured victory in the latest battle of Liberal versus teal.
The contest played out across three NSW by-elections on Saturday.
The Liberals were defending three heartland seats in northern Sydney, with two looking set to be a cakewalk as expected as votes were counted on Saturday night.
Jacqui Scruby, a Climate 200-backed former adviser to federal independent MPs Zali Steggall and Sophie Scamps, opened up a large lead over Liberal opponent Georgia Ryburn in Pittwater.
Late in the evening the NSW electoral commission reported Scruby was ahead with 55% of the two-party preferred count.
While rising living costs played a role in the campaign, much of it whittled down to who was from the area known as the insular peninsula.
Both sides highlighted their candidate as a local.
But Ryburn’s residence a few kilometres outside the electorate left her resorting to social media ads and robocalls to underline her family’s multi-generational Pittwater links.
“Whether you’ve lived on the beaches for five years, or 50 years, if you call our community home, you’re a local,” she said in one ad that ran on Instagram and Facebook.
Opposition Leader Mark Speakman weighed in to highlight Ryburn had been school captain of “the local Anglican school” – albeit leaving out the northern beaches school was also well south of Pittwater.
Election analyst Ben Raue, of the Tally Room, called the result on Saturday night.
“I’ve called the results in all three by-elections,” he said in a post on X.
“Easy retains for the Liberals in Epping and Hornsby and an easy gain for independent Jacqui Scruby in Pittwater.”
Speakman tarred the teals as he made a pitch for the Liberals in Pittwater.
He vigorously campaigned in the neck-and-neck race, trumpeting how voters would get Ryburn and a team of MPs on their side.
“The teals haven’t achieved anything in Canberra, they won’t achieve anything in Macquarie Street,” the Liberal leader said.
“If you want to tackle the Minns Labor government … you need the Liberals there.”
The by-election, triggered by criminal charges being laid against a sitting MP, which he denied, was held alongside those in Epping and Hornsby.
Those were sparked by the resignations of former premier Dominic Perrottet and former treasurer Matt Kean.
Liberal candidates Monica Tudehope and James Wallace were on track to triumph easily in the Labor-less races.
Like Ryburn, the duo have links to the area but do not reside there, so were unable to vote for themselves.
