But in the end it was the pollsters that had the real finger on the pulse of the Bathurst electorate and the sitting Member Paul Toole was never in danger.

In fact he continued a trend of recent years by topping the vote count at every booth in the electorate except Kandos which had come into the electorate for the first time following a boundary redistribution.

Paul Toole came into parliament at the 2011 election with a record majority following the retirement of long term incumbent, the ALP’s Gerard Martin.

This time around the ALP had learned lessons from 2011 and mounted a longer and stronger campaign.

But while the margin was reduced by around six per cent it was still very much a clear cut result for the Coalition.

The Nationals Mr Toole comfortably outpolled Country Labor’s Cassandra Coleman with 60 per cent of the primary vote.

Then there was plenty of clear air to the other hopefuls, The Greens’ Tracey Carpenter, Christian Democrats’ Narelle Rigby and No Land Tax Party’s Tom Cripps.

It was, however, one of the best performances by The Greens in the electorate with almost 10 per cent of the primary vote.

Mr Toole achieved his winning margin early in the evening after the close of booths and continuing counting of a large number of pre poll votes would have no effect on the outcome.

Returning Officer Stuart Evenett said yesterday that pre poll voting this year had proved very popular and in fact the Bathurst electorate had been the third busiest in the state in this regard.

In Lithgow around 3500 people took advantage of the pre poll facility at the library while in Bathurst some 10,000 got in early.

And while this reduced the rush to the traditional booths it was still busy for at least much of the morning when voting opened on Saturday.

The rush had tapered off considerably during the afternoon.

Yesterday Mr Toole was pleased with the show of support and thanked his campaign team for their efforts.

“We won 43 of the 44 booths across the electorate on primary votes,” he said.

“The one we didn’t win was at Kandos and the margin there was only 14 votes.”

Mr Toole pledged to work for the entire electorate over the next four year and said he was hopeful of retaining his Local Government portfolio.

Country ALP’s Cassandra Coleman had put more than 12 months effort into her campaign and had enthusiastic support from her team.

She said that irrespective of the weekend result she would continue to campaign to have Bathurst returned to ALP representation.

“I’ll be back,” she said.

Similar sentiments were expressed by The Greens’ Tracey Gardiner who said she was pleased with her support and would ‘run again in a heartbeat’.