Incumbent Adam Crouch has won the former Liberal stronghold of Terrigal after weathering a big swing to Labor at the NSW election, says the ABC's chief election analyst Antony Green.
The result, plus a win for the Liberal Party in western Sydney seat Holsworthy, also called by Green today, ends Labor's hopes of governing outright.
It leaves Labor with 45 seats, two shy of a 47-seat majority, with the Liberals ahead in Ryde, the last seat in doubt.
Green says Mr Crouch won the Central Coast seat by 1,258 votes after the final postal votes were counted, ending a "rollercoaster" of emotions for both sides since the polls closed last Saturday.
That night an air of optimism swept the Labor camp as Sam Boughton looked set to unseat Mr Crouch.
The 31-year-old is a local physiotherapist who was born and raised on the Central Coast.
Early in the night, Green predicted the seat would be retained by the Liberals but by night's end the incumbent was behind and Green was predicting the seat would be an ALP gain.
What started as a safe 12.3 per cent margin for Mr Crouch was almost wiped out with a 12 per cent swing to Labor.
As the week progressed and postal and pre-poll votes were to be counted, the candidates were cautious, neither prepared to call the seat.
Mr Boughton said the race had been "a bit of a rollercoaster."
"I'm proud of what we've achieved," he said.
"It was very much a grassroots campaign, not a lot of funding and we have cause to be proud of what we have achieved."
Some of the key issues he had campaigned on included healthcare, the environment and education, as well as some big local issues.
"There's been some big local issues as well like the Wamberal sea wall," he said.
"If you look at the booth results from Wamberal on election day, I think that's a pretty clear indication of how the community feels there."
Plans to build a sea wall at Wamberal have divided the community, with many people opposing the proposal.
The wall was proposed after storms buffeted the coast at Wamberal in July 2020.
Mr Boughton used his election campaign to speak out against the plans, which garnered local support.
In the two Wamberal booths, Sam Boughton secured marginally more votes than Adam Crouch, a huge turnaround from the 2019 poll, which saw the Liberal incumbent record more than twice as many votes as Labor.
All the sitting Labor MPs across seats on the Central Coast retained their seats and increased their margins.
The Entrance was the most marginal seat coming into the election but Labor MP David Mehan ended up increasing his margin by more than 3 per cent.
As expected, it was a comfortable election for Labor MP's Liesl Tesch in Gosford, Yasmin Catley in Swansea and David Harris in Wyong.
Tesch increased her margin by more than 8 per cent, Catley saw a 4.8 per cent swing and Harris had an increase of 7.8 per cent.
