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The mood among Labor Party faithful was upbeat on Saturday night as Wollongong lord mayoral candidate David Brown moved within a few hundred votes of favourite Gordon Bradbery.
As of 10pm, with 81,831 first preference votes counted, Bradbery had 33.19 per cent of the vote (27,163 votes) with Brown on 28.11 per cent (23,002). The Liberals’ John Dorahy was third with 16.63 per cent (13,607).
“It looks like a coin-flip between myself and Gordon Bradbery [for lord mayor] and it could go either way,” Brown told the Mercury on Saturday night.
“At this stage it’s hard to say.”
Asked if he was surprised by such a close contest, Brown “thought this was a chance of being a close election”.
“I also thought it could also go the other way,” he said.
“It’s very hard to get a feel for it – the results are very patchy. Wollongong’s a big city, with diverse booths.
“There’s some booths where I’m winning in a landslide and some booths where Gordon’s winning in a landslide – you’ve got to add all those up and see what comes out in the wash”.
Brown described Labor’s overall early count numbers across Wollongong’s three wards as “very encouraging” and predicted the party would pick up an extra two seats on council.
“There’s been a doubling of the Labor base vote in some of the wards and it appears to be that we’ve regained faith with the citizens of Wollongong,” he said.
The mood among Labor faithful who gathered at Wollongong’s M2 Kitchen as the count got under way on Saturday night was “very upbeat”, Brown said.
“It looks like we’re well-placed to win two extra seats on the council,” he said.
“I don’t want to call that too early but it looks like that’s where we’re headed.”
Postal and pre-poll votes are yet to be counted.