Northcote

Northcote covers 21.1 square kilometres between the Yarra River and Bell Street, bounded on the east by the Darebin Creek and on the west by the Merri Creek. It takes in the suburbs of Northcote, Thornbury, Alphington and Fairfield in whole, and 31.4 per cent of the gazetted locality of Preston in the north, shared with Preston District. It is one of the smaller districts in the state by area and one of the most densely settled.

Enrolment stood at 53,364 in September 2026, up 2,995, or 5.9 per cent, on the 50,369 electors at the close of rolls in 2022. The district adjoins Preston to the north, Pascoe Vale and Brunswick across the Merri Creek to the west, Richmond to the south, and Kew and Ivanhoe across the Yarra to the south and east. At the 2021 Census its localities held 67,031 people on an area-weighted estimate, 13.4 per cent of them aged 65 and over, with 39.2 per cent of occupied dwellings rented, 25.9 per cent of residents born overseas and 23.1 per cent speaking a language other than English at home. Professionals made up 41.3 per cent of employed residents.

Kat Theophanous has been the member for Northcote since 24 November 2018, when she won the seat for Labor from the Greens' Lidia Thorpe, who had held it since the by-election of the year before. She succeeded Fiona Richardson, the Labor member who died in August 2017. Theophanous has been Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier since 7 August 2026. Her inaugural speech was on 6 February 2019. There has been no change of party and no vacancy in Northcote since the 2022 election. Her record is on her Parliament of Victoria profile, as at 17 October 2026.

Eleven candidates stood on 26 November 2022. Theophanous polled 17,303 first preferences, 40.6 per cent, and Gome 12,797, 30.0 per cent. Stewart Todhunter of the Liberal Party took 5,205 votes, 12.2 per cent, and Kath Larkin of the Victorian Socialists 2,776, 6.5 per cent, with April Clarke of Fiona Patten's Reason Party on 1,539, 3.6 per cent, and seven others below that. Of 45,087 votes cast by 89.5 per cent of the 50,369 electors enrolled, 2,445 were informal, 5.4 per cent.

The count ran to nine exclusions. The Victorian Socialists' 3,739 votes, excluded eighth, went 75.8 per cent to Gome and 18.2 per cent to Theophanous. The Liberal's Todhunter was excluded last with 6,728 votes, and they split 60.9 per cent to Gome and 39.1 per cent to Theophanous, so the Liberal preferences favoured the Greens over Labor. The final count was 21,413 to 21,229, 50.22 to 49.78 per cent, a Labor margin of 0.22 points; a shift of 93 votes at the last exclusion would have reversed it.

Early votes carried the count. Of the 45,085 votes in the Commission's two-candidate count, 22,703, or 50.4 per cent, were cast early, and they split 51.9 per cent to Labor, a lead of 799 votes. Postal votes, 8.0 per cent of the total, split 57.1 per cent to Labor, a lead of 493. The 15,923 ordinary votes cast at the voting centres on election day split 48.2 per cent to Labor, a Greens lead of 548, and absent votes went 60.5 per cent to the Greens.

The Greens led at nine of the 15 ordinary voting centres and Labor at six. Labor's strongest booths were Alphington at 54.1 per cent of the two-candidate vote, Alphington North at 54.0 and Preston at 53.6. The Greens' strongest were Thornbury, where they took 58.1 per cent of 1,712 votes, Westgarth at 57.3 and Northcote North at 57.1. The geography runs north to south: Labor's vote holds up in the older streets of Alphington, Fairfield and the Preston end, and the Greens lead through central Thornbury, Westgarth and Northcote North.

Northcote has returned a Labor member at every general election since 2010, each time with the Greens second, and the margin has narrowed at every one: 10.6 points in 2010, 6.0 in 2014, 1.7 in 2018 and 0.22 in 2022. Fiona Richardson held the seat until her death in August 2017. At the by-election on 18 November 2017 the Greens' Lidia Thorpe reached an absolute majority of 50.93 per cent as the count ended with three candidates remaining, ahead of Labor's Clare Burns on 39.93 and Vince Fontana on 9.14, and the Greens won the seat from Labor for the first time. Theophanous won it back in 2018.

The 2021 redivision left Northcote unchanged. The Electoral Boundaries Commission recorded the district at 49,904 electors at 30 November 2020, 2.63 per cent above the average enrolment, and kept its boundaries for their strength along the Yarra River, the Merri and Darebin creeks and Bell Street. A submission to move part or all of Clifton Hill into Northcote from Richmond District was declined; the Commission held the Merri Creek line and instead moved the balance of Fitzroy North, 6,927 electors, from Richmond to Brunswick. The 2018 result therefore carried to the 2022 boundaries without adjustment, and Labor's two-candidate share fell 1.5 points between the two elections.

Northcote is not on the Labor–Coalition pendulum. The seat is held by Labor against the Greens, so the polls' average swing between Labor and the Coalition, which stood at 53.9 to 46.1 to the Coalition on 16 October 2026, does not measure the contest here. The margin that matters is the 0.22 points, the smallest of any district, between Labor and the Greens on the two-candidate count. Every poll in the statewide average is on the Victorian election polls tracker, and the leaders' ratings are on the pages for Ben Carroll's approval rating and Jess Wilson's approval rating.

The 2022 count turned on the preferences of the Liberal and the Victorian Socialists, which both broke towards the Greens. The electorate that votes on 28 November 2026 is larger than the one that voted in 2022, with 53,364 electors in September 2026 against 50,369.

Northcote is one of the eleven districts of Northern Metropolitan Region, which elects five members of the Legislative Council. In 2022 the quota was 75,406 votes, and the members elected, in order, were Sheena Watt (Labor), Evan Mulholland (Liberal), Samantha Ratnam (Greens), Enver Erdogan (Labor) and Adem Somyurek, who was elected for the Democratic Labour Party and now sits as an independent. Samantha Ratnam has since left the Council and the Greens' Anasina Gray-Barberio fills the vacancy, as at 17 October 2026. The region and its members are set out in the Council section of the hub.

Results, enrolment, boundaries and the timetable are from the Victorian Electoral Commission; the 2022 result is its distribution of preferences and the booth shares its two-candidate-preferred count by voting centre. The 2017 by-election result is the Commission's. Members are from the Parliament of Victoria as at 17 October 2026; enrolment is as at September 2026. Boundaries, localities and postcodes are Vicmap Admin, © State of Victoria, CC BY 4.0, matched to the district by area. Population figures are the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census, area-weighted by locality. The 2021 redivision is described in the Electoral Boundaries Commission's report. The polls' average is the Victorian election 2026 hub's register, updated 16 October 2026. Analysis and visualisation by Komms-Haus.