Resolve Strategic: 53-47 to LNP in Queensland

A new Queensland poll finds Labor very nearly back in the game, amid surging approval for Steven Miles.

Further indications of a Labor recovery in Queensland from a Resolve Strategic poll in the Brisbane Times, putting them fully nine points higher off a dismal mid-year starting point to record 32% of the primary vote, with the Liberal National Party down four to 40%. The pollster breaks with its usual practice of not dealing in preferences, finding the LNP leading 53-47 on a respondent-allocated measure and 52-48 using preference flows from past elections – a strikingly narrow lead considering Labor in New South Wales failed to get a majority with 54.3%. Notably, the poll has response options reflecting the candidates in the respondent’s electorate, thereby removing the all-too-popular generic independent response and causing the independent result to drop from 9% to 2%. This did not yield a dividend for minor parties: the Greens and One Nation, who have candidates in every seat, are respectively down one to 11% and up one to 9%.

A leadership approval question emphasising “performance in recent weeks” produced a distinctly favourable result for Steven Miles, including in comparison with the recent YouGov poll whose survey period partly overlapped (October 10 to 16 for that poll, October 14 to 19 for this one). Miles registered a combined very good and good rating of 48%, with poor and very poor at 38%. While this had the edge on David Crisafulli’s 44% and 37% lead, Crisafulli retained a slight 39-37 edge on preferred premier, though this was greatly reduced from his 40-27 lead in the mid-year poll, which was conducted from July through to September. The sample for the poll was 1003.

Freshwater Strategy: 51-49 to Coalition (open thread)

Little change on voting intention in the monthly Freshwater Strategy poll, which also includes a question on Anthony Albanese’s property purchase.

The monthly Freshwater Strategy poll in the Financial Review has the Coalition with a lead of 51-49, a slight improvement for Labor on a 52-48 result last time. The primary votes are all but entirely unchanged, with Labor steady on 30%, the Coalition down one to 41% and the Greens steady on 13%. Despite the headline result, the changes on personal ratings favour the Coalition, with Anthony Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister narrowing from 45-41 to 44-43. Peter Dutton is up three on approval to 37% and up one on disapproval to 39%, while Anthony Albanese is up one to 35% and steady on 49%. The poll also got in quick with a question on the Prime Minister’s headline-grabbing $4.3 million property purchase last week, finding 36% saying it had worsened their view of him, 4% that it had improved it, and 52% that it had no impact. The poll was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1034.

I have also yet to make note of last week’s Roy Morgan result, which should be superseded later today. It recorded a tie on two-party preferred, unchanged on the previous week, from primary votes of Labor 30% (down one-and-a-half), Coalition 37.5% (steady), Greens 14% (up one-and-a-half) and One Nation 6% (up half). As usual, the two-party measure based on 2022 election preferences rather than respondent allocation was more favourable to Labor, putting them ahead 51-49, in from 52-48. The poll was conducted October 7 to 13 from a sample of 1697.

YouGov: 55-45 to LNP in Queensland

More indications of a looming Labor defeat in Queensland, but mixed signals as to its scale.

With a week to go, yesterday’s Courier-Mail reported a YouGov poll found Labor in an improved position compared with the last such poll in July, while still heading for defeat. Conducted from last Thursday through to Wednesday, the poll credited the Liberal National Party with a two-party lead of 55-45, in from 57-43, from primary votes of Labor 31% (up five), LNP 41% (down two), Greens 11% (down three) and One Nation 11% (down two). Steven Miles has also all but eliminated a substantial deficit on preferred premier, with David Crisafulli’s lead in from 40-27 to 37-36. Piecing together information from the report and an accompanying line chart, it looks like Miles is up three on approval to 34% and steady on disapproval to 44%, while Crisafulli is down two to 38% and up nine to 32%.

The poll helpfully includes breakdowns into five broadly defined regions, with caution due for the small sub-samples this produces from an overall sample of 1503. Based on my own assumptions as to how seats might have been characterised, this suggests Labor stands to lose the election in “regional”, which an accompanying map suggests encompasses the coast north of the Sunshine Coast (plus, I’ve assumed, Toowoomba), and “outer metro”, from what I calculate as swings of around 13% and 9% respectively. Conversely, the poll finds Labor holding steady on two-party preferred terms in “inner metro”, although it has lost about three points to the Greens. Labor faces swings of 3% to 4% in “coastal” (meaning the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast”) and “rural”, where it has little existing support to lose. While I would treat the result with caution, the numbers for “rural” suggest Katter’s Australian Party is shedding support to both the LNP and One Nation.

On top of its YouGov poll, Courier-Mail conducted an “exit poll” on Tuesday targeting 100 voters apiece at early voting centres in ten key electorates. While the scientific precision of the exercise might be doubted, the results were nonetheless striking in showing Labor down by between 4% (in McConnel) and 22% (in Rockhampton, where it may be losing votes to independent Margaret Strelow). Still more remarkably, the LNP was up by between 9% and 27%, excluding an outlier result for Cairns. There was little encouragement for the Greens in its target seats of McConnel and Greenslopes, which would have been won by the LNP on the numbers published, though the margins of error are naturally very wide. Comparing like for like (which the Courier-Mail’s tables didn’t do), Labor was down 13 points on 2020 and the LNP up 15, with the Greens down two and One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party little changed.

The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column relates “concern mounting about seats in Brisbane’s greater south” from Labor sources, but optimism about Meaghan Scanlon’s chances of retaining Gaven, the one seat Labor holds on the Gold Coast. Hayden Johnson of the Courier Mail says both sides expect Labor to hold out against the regional tide in the seat of Cairns, and that “some in Labor” consider Aspley in Brisbane’s inner north, where its margin is 5.2%, to be “50-50”.

ACT election and NSW by-elections live

Live commentary on the count for the Australian Capital Territory election and the New South Wales state by-elections for Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater.

Live updated results from the Australian Capital Territory, Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater.

End of Saturday night

To summarise, the Liberals have had a disappointing result in the Australian Capital Territory, looking to have gained only one seat from their starting point of nine out of 25 and not even being assured of that. Labor has held steady on ten seats, despite its vote share being down by three to four points. The Greens have failed to match a best-ever result in 2020, but the cut in the party’s representation from six seats to three (or possibly four if things go their way in Brindabella) reflected only a slight drop in vote share. Of particular note was the election of two independents for the first time since the 1990s, dove-tailing with the emergence of David Pocock on the federal scene. With Labor and the Greens set to retain a combined majority, they face a marginal position in the new parliament.

Another notable independent win was chalked up last night by Jacqui Scruby in the New South Wales state by-election for Pittwater. Scruby fell 0.7% short of being the only teal independent to gain a seat at the March 2023 election, which she has accounted for on my projection with a swing of about 5%. In this she was no doubt aided by the ignominious circumstances of Liberal member Rory Amon’s departure, and also by both Labor and the Greens leaving the field vacant for her. Labor also did not contest yesterday’s by-elections for Epping and Hornsby, respectively vacated by Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean, where Liberal candidates Monica Tudehope and James Wallace both looked to have scored majorities on the primary vote.

Live commentary

9.46pm. Another update from Brindabella has the Liberals down from 2.58 quotas to 2.57 and the Greens up from 0.54 to 0.55.

9.26pm. The Brindabella preliminary distribution, which was calculated before the weakening of the Liberals’ position, had Labor’s Mick Gentleman, who is fighting for his and Labor’s third seat, excluded with 3708 votes to the third Liberal’s 4218, or 14.3% of the total to 12.6%.

9.19pm. Kevin Bonham can further discern a scenario where Brindabella comes out at Labor three and Liberal two, rather than the other way around. Clearly this is the electorate that will be the main focus of interest in the late count.

9.08pm. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the correction of the Chisholm booth error or a substantial addition of new votes, but the Liberals’ third seat in Brindabella no longer looks secure. The Liberals have a 2.58 quotas (a 9.7% surplus over the second quota), the Greens 0.54 (9.0%) and Independents for Canberra 0.45 (7.5%), leaving preferences from the latter the decisive factor in whether the Greens can yet pull an iron out of the fire here. The preliminary preference distribution has the Independents for Canberra preference going 30.5% to Labor, 19.2% to the Greens and only 13.1% to the Liberals, with 37.2% exhausting. That suggests to me the Liberals will need the fillip they are presumably likely to get from postals to hold out against the Greens.

9.03pm. Nothing in the preference distribution to doubt the earlier assessment of Kurrajong as two Labor and one each for Liberal, Greens and independent Thomas Emerson, the latter taking the Greens’ second seat.

8.55pm. No surprises in the distribution for Brindabella, a clear result of Liberal three and Labor two. Ginninderra is as expected projected as a status quo result of Labor two, Liberal two, Greens on. Jo Clay of the Greens gets the last seat by surviving ahead of Mark Richardson of Independents for Canberra by 13.6% to 10.6% at the decisive point of the late count.

8.46pm. Preliminary preference distributions have been published on the ACT Electoral Commission site, which I’ll now be poring over.

8.45pm. Antony Green on the ABC notes all 900 votes from the Chisholm booth in Brindabella have been allocated to the Liberals, an obvious error. However, its correction won’t fundamentally change the situation there.

7.58pm. So it looks to me like the Liberals are gaining a seat from the Greens in Brindabella, and independents are gaining seats from the Greens in Kurrajong and Murrumbidgee. That would leave Labor steady on ten seats but reduce their coalition partners in the Greens from six to three, while leaving them with a combined majority of 13 out of 25. The Liberals would at least gain parity with Labor on ten seats, but be unable to gain a majority even if the two independents supported them.

7.52pm. Yerrabi looks like a status quo result in every particular, returning incumbents Michael Pettersson and Suzanne Orr of Labor, Leanne Castley and James Milligan of Liberal, and Andrew Braddock of the Greens.

7.49pm. My system is now calling Pittwater for Jacqui Scruby (and I believe that’s despite a glitch in the projection that’s favouring the Liberals by a handful of votes).

7.48pm. A second independent looks like being elected in Murrumbidgee — Fiona Carrick, at the expense of Emma Davidson of the Greens, with Labor (incumbents Chris Steel and Marisa Paterson) and Liberal (incumbents Jeremy Hanson and Ed Cocks) remaining on two each.

7.44pm. Kurrajong, which went two Labor, two Greens and one Liberal in 2020, looks like electing Thomas Emerson, Independents for Canberra candidate and son of former federal Labor minister Craig Emerson. This is disappointing for the Liberals who look like remaining stalled on one seat (Elizabeth Lee’s), with the others going two Labor (Andrew Barr and Rachel Stephen-Smith re-elected) and one Greens (Shane Rattenbury re-elected, Rebecca Vassarotti failing to retain the Greens’ second seat).

7.33pm. Ginninderra looks like a status quo result of two each for Labor and Liberal and one for the Greens. Labor incumbents Yvette Berry and Tara Cheyne will be re-elected, as will the only recontesting Liberal, Peter Cain, likely to be joined by Chiaka Barry. Jo Clay should be returned for the Greens.

7.21pm. Antony Green says the ABC computer is calling Pittwater for Jacqui Scruby. I’ve got her probability at 97.4%, and don’t call it until 99%.

7.18pm. I’ll now go through the ACT seats alphabetically. Brindabella looks like Liberal three and Labor two, with the Liberals taking a seat from the Greens. The only contesting Liberal incumbent, Mark Parton, has a quota on his own, with Deborah Morris (especially) and James Daniel looking good for the other two. Labor’s only contesting incumbent, Mick Gentleman, is coming third on his party’s ticket, behind Caitlin Tough and Tamius Werner-Gibbings, the latter of whom had to fight for preselection.

7.06pm. As my projection suggested it would, a fourth booth from Pittwater has moderated Jacqui Scruby’s lead. We also have, very early, a batch of postals, breaking 743-606 to Liberal. So Scruby will need her lead on the booth results. She’s very well placed, but my system still isn’t calling it.

7.03pm. I believe it was just the one bug, and it’s now fixed.

6.58pm. Bugs in my ACT page: pretty much everything in the summary table at the bottom of the entry page, and the bar charts on the seat pages are misbehaving. Initial impression is that the Liberals are doing very well in Brindabella, but more modestly elsewhere.

6.53pm. Thanks to the magic of electronic voting, a massive influx of results from the ACT.

6.51pm. Three booths in from Pittwater, and I’m projecting Jacqui Scruby with 55.6% TCP when her raw primary vote is 58.7%, so presumably these are from good areas for her. My system isn’t quite giving it away yet though.

6.48pm. Three booths in from Epping, Liberal candidate on nearly two-thirds of the vote.

6.43pm. Two booths from Pittwater look hugely encouraging for independent Jacqui Scruby, her primary vote at over 60% in both.

6.42pm. Sixty-nine votes from Wisemans Ferry offers nothing to disabuse the assumption that a Liberal win in Hornsby is a formality.

6pm. Polls are closed for each of the above-mentioned electoral events, which you can read a lot more about through the election guides at the top of the sidebar. My results page for the by-elections offer booth-matched swings and projections and full results at booth level in map and tabular form. The ACT page is more elementary – no results at booth level and the swings simply compare the current results with the final ones from 2020.

US presidential election minus three weeks

“If you squint at the polling averages, things are getting closer”, notes Nate Silver. But you probably shouldn’t.

There’s been a fair bit of chatter around lately about momentum in favour of Donald Trump, but by any reasonable metric the situation remains as it’s been since the dust settled a few weeks after Joe Biden’s withdrawal. Namely, poll aggregates have Kamala Harris up by three points nationally, which translates into an effective dead heat from election forecasts. A narrowing in Nate Silver’s probability forecast from around 56-44 to 50-50 has no doubt been influential, but the fundamental calculus is unchanged: the polls will very likely prove to have been out in one direction or another, and whoever they are underselling will take home the prize. For what it’s worth, The Economist’s and FiveThirtyEight’s models have ticked back a little to Harris over the past few days after narrowing to almost dead level a week ago, respectively putting her at 54% and 56%.

Considerably more depth on all this is available from Adrian Beaumont’s latest for The Conversation. The monthly Resolve Strategic polls for Nine Newspapers have been asking their Australian respondents who they would vote for if they could or would, consistently finding the fifty-first state to be deep blue: the latest has Kamala Harris at 52%, up two on last month, with Donald Trump down four to 21%.

Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition (open thread)

Marginal changes on the primary vote prove sufficient to give the Coalition a two-party lead in Newspoll for the first time this term.

The Australian reports the latest Newspoll records a two-party lead for the Coalition for the first time since this term, at 51-49 after a 50-50 result three weeks ago, though both major parties are unchanged on the primary vote, Labor at 31% and the Coalition at 38%. The movement is down to a one-point drop for the Greens to 12% and a one-point increase for One Nation to 7%. Anthony Albanese is down three on approval to 40% and up three on disapproval to 54%, edging out past results in August (41% and 54%) and last November (40% and 53%) as his worst net result for the term. Peter Dutton is respectively up one to 38% and steady at 52%, with preferred prime minister narrowing from 46-37 to 45-37. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1258.

Queensland election minus two weeks

With a fortnight to go, suggestions of an improvement in Labor’s position, though not to the extent of being seriously competitive.

Following a week in which abortion unexpectedly took centre stage of the Queensland election campaign, The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports the issue “has helped Labor’s cause in Brisbane, where it faces losses to the LNP and the Greens”. The evidence for this would appear to be Labor internal polling suggesting Grace Grace is well placed to retain the Greens target of McConnel, outpolling them 27% to 24% with the LNP on 34%. This is quite a bit different from polling the column published from a different source last week, which had the Greens on 37.9%, the LNP on 27.4% and Labor on 27.2%. A “senior Labor insider” is further quoted saying a party that feared a near wipeout regionally, leaving it only with Gladstone outside of Brisbane, now sees “glimmers of hope in Cairns, Rockhampton and Maryborough”.

The other big event for the week was the closure of nominations and ballot paper draws, revealing a decline in the total number of candidates to 525 (5.6%) from 597 (6.4%) in 2020. A breakdown from Antony Green shows Labor, the LNP, the Greens and One Nation are contesting all seats, Family First is putting in its biggest effort in some time with 59 candidates, with lesser numbers from Legalise Cannabis, Katter’s Australian Party, Animal Justice and the Libertarians.

Also of note: the website Australian Election Forecasts, operating off an admittedly shallow pool of data, calculates an 85.8% chance the LNP will have a “clear path to government” compared with 4.4% for Labor, the median predicted outcome being 55 seats for the LNP, 29 for Labor, three each for the Greens and Katter’s Australian Party and one independent.

US presidential election minus four weeks

Bad polls for Kamala Harris in Wisconsin and Michigan. Also covered: the UK Conservative leadership election, the far-right wins the most seats in Austria and Japan’s October 27 election.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The US presidential election is on November 5.  In Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls, Kamala Harris has a 49.3-46.1 lead over Donald Trump (49.3-46.2 in my previous US election article for The Conversation on Monday).  In presidential elections, the Electoral College is decisive, not the national popular vote.  Harris has at least a one-point lead in enough states to win the Electoral College by a 276-262 margin.

The New York Times released polls from the highly regarded Siena on Tuesday, which had good and bad news for Harris.  Siena’s national poll gave Harris a 49-46 lead, her best position in this poll.  But Trump led by a thumping 55-41 in Florida, which used to be a swing state.  This caused Silver’s Florida aggregate to move two points in Trump’s favour, and he now leads by 5.5 points there.

On Wednesday, Quinnipiac polls of Wisconsin and Michigan gave Trump 2-3 point leads, though Harris had a three-point lead in Pennsylvania.  Silver’s model now gives Harris a 53.5% chance to win the Electoral College, down from 56% on Monday.  There’s a 23% chance that Harris wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College.  The FiveThirtyEight model is now very close to Silver, with Harris a 53% chance to win.

Two right-wing candidates to contest UK Conservative leadership

As in previous UK Conservative leadership elections, the final two candidates are selected by Conservative MPs, with Conservative party members to choose between these final candidates.  At Wednesday’s final round of MPs’ votes, the right-wing Kemi Badenoch won 42 of the 120 votes, the right-wing Robert Jenrick 41 and the more centrist James Cleverly 37. 

Cleverly had easily won the previous round of MPs’ votes on Tuesday with 39 votes, followed by Jenrick on 31 and Badenoch on 30.  It’s likely that a tactical voting blunder caused him to finish third and be eliminated, with some of his supporters voting for Jenrick as they thought Cleverly had a better chance to beat Jenrick than Badenoch in the members’ vote.

Members will now decide between Badenoch and Jenrick by an online vote, with the final result to be announced November 2.  A late September YouGov poll of Conservative members gave Badenoch a 41-38 lead over Jenrick.

Labour and PM Keir Starmer’s dreadful start to the term continues, with a recent More in Common poll giving Labour just a 29-28 lead over the Conservatives with 19% for Reform and 11% for the Liberal Democrats, although three other early October polls gave Labour 5-8 point leads.  The latest two polls that have asked about Starmer’s ratings have him at net -30 (Opinium) and net -36 (YouGov).

Far-right wins most seats in Austria

Austria uses proportional representation with a 4% threshold to elect its 183 seats.  At the September 29 election, the far-right FPÖ won 57 seats (up 26 since the 2019 election), the conservative ÖVP 51 seats (down 20), the centre-left SPÖ 41 (up one), the liberal NEOS 18 (up three) and the Greens 16 (down ten). 

The FPÖ had its best result in an Austrian election and it was the first time since World War Two that a far-right party has won the most seats.  However, the FPÖ is well short of the 92 seats needed for a majority.  The ÖVP and the Greens had formed a coalition government after the 2019 election.  A coalition between the ÖVP and SPÖ is the only way to keep the FPÖ out of government.

Japanese election: October 27

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has formed government after every Japanese election since 1955 except after the 2009 election.  Of the 465 lower house seats, 289 are elected by first-past-the-post, while the remaining 176 are elected using proportional representation in 11 multi-member electorates.

This election is being held a year early after Shigeru Ishiba replaced Fumio Kishida as LDP leader and PM on September 27 and called an early election.  Polls indicate the LDP is far ahead of their nearest party rival, the centre-left Constitutional Democrats, but there’s a large “no party” vote.  The LDP should easily win yet another election.

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