Liberal Giselse Kapterian has won the seat of Bradfield on Sydney's north shore by a margin of a few hundred votes, the ABC projects.
Ms Kapterian has beaten out Climate 200 group-backed independent Nicolette Boele, who failed in her second attempt to win the seat.
[bradfield votes]Ms Boele looked likely to finally win the historically safe Liberal seat left vacant by retiring MP Paul Fletcher until votes swung back towards Ms Kapterian late last week.
She had come close to ousting the Liberals in 2022 and spent the past three years campaigning to win the seat.
A recount had looked likely in the days after the polls closed, with the margin between the pair swaying in and out of the 100 vote threshold required by the Australian Electoral Commission to force scrutineers back to a second count.
Securing Bradfield gives the Liberal Party just five seats in Greater Sydney and seven of the 46 federal electorates in the state.
ABC election analyst Anthony Green said there are only around 1,000 votes left to be counted and Ms Kapterian will win the seat.
She currently has a lead of 219 votes.
The win means the Coalition will have at least 41 seats when the next parliament begins, with just a handful of seats across the country remaining too close to call.
Neither candidate has claimed victory nor conceded defeat.
Swing towards independent despite Liberal win
Ms Boele managed to make it a tighter race than 2022, shoring up about 2.5 per cent swing in her favour.
Her run at federal parliament was backed by the same Climate 200 group spearheading several campaigns of teal independents across the country.
Ms Boele entered politics after a career in clean energy and climate change policy and spent the last 10 years as an executive targeting responsible investment.
Ms Kapterian made her tilt at Bradfield after initially being preselected for the seat of North Sydney.
She fended off her Bradfield preselection rival Warren Mundine to earn a spot on the ballot, despite the latter having strong backing from conservative Liberals, including from key supporter Tony Abbott.
Before entering politics, Ms Kapterian enjoyed a distinguished legal career that included stints prosecuting war crimes in Ethiopia and in international trade in London and Geneva.
Until 2022 Bradfield had long been considered a safe Liberal seat, until the wave of independents interstate saw popularity for the movement on Sydney's north shore grow.
