On a two-candidate preferred basis across the whole of the Cowper electorate, which extends from Port Macquarie up to Coffs Harbour, Conaghan received 57 per cent of the vote to Oakeshott's 42 per cent - hardly the 'lineball' result that everyone was predicting.

But digging down by polling place reveals pockets of strong support for Oakeshott in Bellingen Shire.

There were 10 locations in Bellingen Shire where you could cast your vote, and at five of them Oakeshott scored on average two-thirds of the two-candidate preferred vote, with Bellingen township the highest at 72 per cent.

Across Cowper's 67 other polling places, there were only seven more booths where Oakeshott outshone Conaghan on a TCP basis - Coffs Jetty, Missabotti, Port Macquarie Greenmeadows, Port Macquarie South, Sawtell, Scotts Head and Valla Beach.

Mylestom and Raleigh did have the close result that had been anticipated (51/49) while Bostobrick, Dorrigo and Urunga were clearly favouring Conaghan, who garnered TCP results of 66, 56 and 54 per cent respectively.

These figures were extracted from the Australian Electoral Tally Room website, Results by Division, Two Candidate Preferred by Polling Place this morning, with 76 of 77 polling places returned and 82.80% of votes counted.

See https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-24310-113.htm