ADAM Shultz will be the next mayor of Lake Macquarie.
A round of applause erupted from the crowd at Cr Shultz' election party at the Windale Bowling Club on Saturday night as he declared victory in front of fellow party members, supporters, his family and friends.
"We made sure of it, double-checked, triple-checked, dotted our I's and crossed our T's but it's good to be able to finally call it," he said.
"I'm really excited about the future and looking forward to the challenges ahead, I'm going to be collaborative and work with future councillors and there may be one or two new ones.
"I'm looking forward to the next generation of leadership with myself as mayor but potentially with new councillors as well."
At 9pm, Cr Shultz held 35.8 per cent of the vote, or 27,245 votes, followed by Lake Mac Independents candidate Kate Warner and Liberal candidate Melody Harding.
Cr Shultz said the win is the result of weeks of campaigning and countless hours talking to constituents about his plans for the city.
"I'm still getting used to it, I'm just Adam, a dad of three kids and a husband, it's all new to me but I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead," he said.
Cr Shultz takes the reigns from veteran mayor Kay Fraser, who held the title for the last eight years before deciding to step down from her career in public office.
He has previously served as deputy mayor of Lake Macquarie from 2022-23, and has served as a Labor East Ward councillor since 2016.
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In Newcastle, Nuatali Nelmes has said her race is too close to call but she is slightly ahead of Ross Kerridge.
The race had tightened to less than 1% between the pair about 9pm.
"We have a very, very close result," she told party faithful.
"We're slightly ahead, which is great.
"There's booths to come in then we need to count all of the pre-poll."
Nelmes said it was looking like returning councillors Declan Clausen, Liz Adamczyk and Peta Winney-Baartz would be re-elected and newcomer Paige Johnson, while Deahnna Richardson was also ahead in ward four.
In Port Stephens, Leah Anderson launched her second campaign for Port Stephens council's top job this year and on Saturday night she was in the lead with 49.81 per cent of the formal votes counted.
The east ward Labor councillor narrowly missed out on being elected mayor to Ryan Palmer in the 2021 election. She is yet to declare a win with 25,384 of 60,182 votes counted.
Maitland's incumbent mayor Philip Penfold took to social media to thank the community for returning him to the top job for another term.
Cr Penfold was leading the mayoral vote tally with 55.70% of the votes about 9pm on Saturday.
"We did it ! Thanks Maitland. Proud to have been returned as your Mayor," he said in a Facebook post.
The initial count has been recorded by all polling places, with more than 35,000 votes counted.
In Cessnock, the gap between independent Daniel Watton and Labor incumbent Jay Suvaal had tightened, but Watton still held a good lead. Watton had 47.89% of the vote to Suvaal's 43.61% with more than half the vote counted at 9.30pm.
