Before dropping his vote in the ballot box, Michael Daley did what he's done every election morning for the past 25 years: gobble up a meat pie and gulp down a strawberry milk.
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"Breakfast of champions," the NSW Labor leader said as he sat down at House of Pie in Matraville on Saturday morning.
"You can't go wrong. Keeps you going the whole day."
It's a tradition he started back in 1995, when he was first elected to Randwick council.
"Hope the luck holds up," he laughed.
Mr Daley ate it alongside the pie shop owner's children, who wrote him a note saying "Good luck Michael" with a drawing of a heart.
The potential premier appeared calm and confident as he shook the hands of voters on the streets of Malabar and talked to volunteers at Chifley Public School.
Accompanied by his wife Christina and children Olivia and Austin, Mr Daley said it was a "big day" after casting his vote.
"This is the day that the people of NSW get to take their lives back after eight years of a chaotic government that's taken them for granted," he told reporters.
"We have worked as hard as we can. It's been a long campaign. Now it's all in the hands of the voter."
After voting, Mr Daley went straight to the barbecue and ordered two sausage sandwiches for his kids and banana bread for his wife.
He said it had been a long four months of campaigning since replacing Luke Foley as leader in November.
He defended his poor final week of the campaign, having stumbled through a leadership debate and being forced to apologise over comments about Asian immigration caught on video at a pub forum last year.
"We are human, we make mistakes, but the most important thing is you pick yourself up," he said.
Mr Daley acknowledged the polls had been "neck-and-neck" during the entire campaign, but it was hard to predict the outcome.
He believes concerns about light rail and stadium redevelopment was enough to sway voters against the Liberal-Nationals government.
"They've run a very negative campaign because they have no story to tell," he said.
"Everything they've touched has turned to misery or destruction."
Mr Daley went on to visit polling booths at Heathcote, and in the marginal seats of East Hill and Penrith.
Australian Associated Press
