Mr Layzell maintained his lead with 52.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote on Monday, while Labor's Peree Watson had 47.5 per cent, with 48.2 per cent of the vote counted.

Both sides agreed the outcome would be determined by the results of the Singleton pre-poll booth that contains 6500 votes. It was to be counted with other pre-polling on Tuesday.

"It's really too close to call before we see what's in the pre-poll vote," Ms Watson said.

At the time of going to print, Mr Layzell had a lead of 1890 votes over Ms Watson with only the votes in six pre poll booths to be counted.

Election analyst Peter Bartley said it was expected that the Nationals would win Gloucester and Dungog pre- poll booths again.

"As well as picking up Denman and East Maitland because of changed circumstances in the former and a huge effort in the latter," he said.

"The margin in the Muswellbrook pre-poll in the 2021 byelection was 772 in favour of Labor.

"Singleton pre-poll in 2021 was a narrow win to the Nationals by 86 votes.

"Because of specific localised issues this time and other factors, Labor is expected to win Singleton pre-poll, but statistically it was not expected to be enough to get Labor over the line."

At the time of going to print, all 41 election day booths had been counted as well as Scone pre-poll.

Mr Bartley said the Nationals won 28 of the election day booths to Labor's 13 and the Nationals also convincingly won Scone pre poll by 1522 votes to 698.

"In this election Labor was strong in three areas of the electorate - the three booths in Muswellbrook, the four Maitland booths and the pocket between Branxton and Singleton," Mr Bartley said.

"Branxton delivered the most convincing victory for Labor, winning it by 801 votes to 310.

"The new Maitland booths are an interesting study exercise. The Nationals achieved a total of 39 per cent of the vote across the three main booths of Lorn, Largs and Bolwarra. Labor only won Largs by two votes, Bolwarra by 61 votes and Lorn by 172 votes."

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