As polls close across the Hunter, the Labor team are setting in at Cessnock Leagues Club for what is expected to be a tight race.
At 6.55pm Sky TV's national commentators are describing the seat as "too close to call", a feeling in line with the sentiment in the electorate itself as picked up by the Newcastle Herald's team of reporters today.
Labor must win a net seven seats to form government but any seats lost along the way mean another seat must be won to balance that setback.
A seat like Hunter should not be up for grabs given Labor's historic hold on it, but various sources - admittedly non-Labor - believe the party is struggling here and in similar coal-mining electorates in Queensland.
Hunter candidate Dan Repacholi said, after a long five months of campaigning, he's put in everything he has.
"The team has done everything we can do," Mr Repacholi said.
"I'm looking forward to sitting back with my volunteers tonight and having a beer as we watch the votes roll in."
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Committed until the dying minute, Mr Repacholi's wife, Alex, was at Cessnock West Public School handing out how-to-vote cards until close to 6pm.
In a self-confessed cliche, as the sun went down in Cessnock, Mrs Repacholi said the election is "now up to the voters".
At Singleton Diggers Club, supporters of National Party candidate James Thomson are quietly confident of being able to pull off an upset, with stories of Labor finding it hard to secure enough volunteers to staff all of candidate Dan Repacholi's booths in the sprawling electorate.
The ALP put out an emergency call to volunteers during the week, which promptly leaked, to the enjoyment of his opponents.
A small group of Nationals supporters was gathered at the Diggers club at 6pm, watching former Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon as a commentator on Sky TV.
James Thomson arrived at the club soon after 6.30pm and said 'it's going to be close".
"Very similar to the feeling during pre-poll," Mr Thomson said.
"We've had areas where we were strong. There are areas where Labor was strong."
At Branxton, One Nation supporters were gathering behind their candidate Dan McNamara at the Miller Park Hotel at East Branxton, which had been closed after financial difficulties but reopened late last year by Mr McNamara.
Former One Nation candidate Stuart Bonds, standing this time as an Independent, is holding his election night show at the Caledonian Hotel in Singleton, which became famous - or infamous, depending on your point of view - for the strong anti-mandatory vaccination stance of its management, earning it the name the Freedom Hotel.
Mr Bonds said he believed James Thomson was capable of pulling off an upset in Hunter, which has been held by Labor since Federation.
But as the Herald has reported this campaign, the seat changed dramatically in a 2016 redistribution, losing much of its western end beyond Muswellbrook, and shifting east to the western boundaries of Lake Macquarie, substantially altering its demographic.
