- READ MORE: Teal Member of Parliament hosts a dance celebration in her office following an "election win"
Moderate candidate Tim Wilson's advantage over independent MP Zoe Daniel has shrunk to under 400 votes, according to leaked WhatsApp communications from his team indicating anxiety about the ongoing tally.
Wilson, who lost the constituency of Goldstein, Melbourne In 2022, 's inner south-east suburbs were won by Daniel, who claimed victory more than a week ago, on May 7, criticizing his Teal opponent for failing to concede.
Following the premature declaration of victory by theClimate200-supportedMP who took to the stage with dance moves and told her volunteers "hope prevails," he delivered his celebratory address.
She later withdrew her claim of victory but refrained from conceding, despite all media outlets declaring it for her liberal opponent.
However, the most recent tally might support Daniel’s choice not to concede since Wilson's advantage has shrunk dramatically from approximately 1,200 votes down to merely 368, considering there are still over 1,200 ballots left to be tallied along with any additional postal votes pending arrival.
On Wednesday evening, Daniel maintained that she was still in the competition.
"We've narrowed down a deficit of nearly 1500 votes on Friday to just 401 today," she posted on Instagram.
'I have all my fingers crossed hoping that a set of international mail-in ballots arrives within the next 48 hours along with several other factors falling into place for us.'
The ex-journalist expressed her gratitude to her volunteers who had been 'monitoring each and every vote.'
As the competition grew intensely close, Wilson additionally aimed to motivate his followers.
The sole focus should be on scrutinizing ballots to ensure that informal votes are not included in the count for the Teals, he stated in WhatsApp messages shared with The Age newspaper.
They are meticulously eliminating votes for our side with remarkable accuracy.
If a complete recount happens, we'll require an extensive scrutiny team since each vote must be carefully examined, and it will turn into a competition to see which side can disqualify the most votes.
'I hope that doesn’t occur.'
A manual recount is triggered when the winning margin falls below 100 votes.
In previous communications, Wilson maintained that 'everything is under control.'
"We didn’t anticipate such a significant decrease in our profit margins, but we were ready for it," he noted.
Should Wilson fail to retain the seat, it would mark a significant reversal of fortune for the 45-year-old.
At the beginning of the week, he thought about joining the race for the Liberal Party leadership.
The Goldstein tally has definitely had its ups and downs.
On election night, Daniel gyrated energetically to 'Titanium' by David Guetta.
Even though she had to retract her claim of winning, she still felt like dancing.
The Teal MP shared a video of her all-female office dancing wildly to Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club on Monday last week.
'It's a resilience test that's for sure,' she captioned the video. 'But no matter what, we will keep dancing.
Daniel, aged 52, is a previous long-term ABC foreign correspondent who has transitioned into politics. He ran his campaign focusing on combating climate change and tackling ethical concerns within political circles.
In 2022, she was chosen as one of several so-called Teal independent candidates, winning against Wilson with 52.87 percent to 47.13 percent of the vote.
Wilson, 45, is a former assistant minister in Scott Morrison's government as the member for Goldstein from 2016 to 2022.
He is a former Human Rights Commissioner and before that had a senior position at the right-wing think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.
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