The Liberal Party has preselected Laurence Antcliff as its candidate for the Seat of Paterson in the upcoming federal election.
Mr Antcliff, Owen Boyd, Sally Halliday and Assari McPhee put themselves forward for preselection at a meeting of 40 party members at Maitland on Wednesday evening.
Ms Halliday and Mr McPhee were eliminated over the course of three preliminary rounds of voting.
Mr Antcliff won the final round by 24 votes to 16.
The party's former candidate Brooke Vitnell, who secured a 1.7-point swing against Labor's Meryl Swanson in 2022, ruled herself out of the contest earlier this year due to commitments associated with her young family.
Ms Vitnell threw her support behind Mr Antcliff, 37, the operations manager, Housing Industry Association Apprentices, NSW and QLD.
Labor's hold on Paterson suffered a blow earlier this year when a electoral boundary redistribution resulted in Kurri Kurri, Abermain and Weston moving to the Hunter electorate.
Ms Swanson held the marginal seat in 2022 with a buffer of 3.3 percentage points, but losing Kurri Kurri would reduce her nominal margin to 2.6 percentage points.
The federal government's proposed Hunter Offshore Wind Project is among the issues that will be at play in the battle for Paterson.
Polling published in the Australian Financial Review last month showed that if an election was held today the Coalition could win seats including Gilmore, on the NSW south coast, Paterson in the NSW, Lingiari in the NT and Lyons in Tasmania from Labor.
The Coalition has identified the Upper Hunter as one of seven sites nationally where it believes a nuclear reactor could be installed.
However it has come under increasing pressure to announce costs for the proposal.
Speaking in Newcastle on Wednesday, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said the details would be announced prior to the election.
"We believe this is a serious proposition we are putting forward," she said.
"We have sent our shadow minister to nuclear countries around the world to hear from the best to make sure the policy we will develop has been thoroughly thought out, costed and configured."
