DemosAU: 53-47 to Labor in Western Australia

A rare state poll for WA finds Labor still ahead, but no longer overwhelmingly in command.

DemosAU offers the rare spectacle of a Western Australian state poll, which finds Labor down three points since the last such poll in February to 33%, with the Liberals up two to 23%, the Nationals down two to 2% and One Nation up one to 18%. Labor holds a 53-47 lead over the Liberals on two-party preferred, in from 57-43 at both the previous poll and the March 2025 election. Roger Cook leads Basil Zempilas 44-33 on preferred premier, in from 43-30. Roger Cook is up one on both approval, to 35%, and disapproval, to 29%, and Basil Zempilas is up three on both approval, to 31%, and disapproval, to 34%. The Cook government scores net negative ratings for its performance across eight issue areas, ranging from minus three on education and schools to minus 54 on housing.

The West Australian has a report on the poll, and the pollster should shortly be publishing a release with detailed voting breakdowns. The poll was conducted May 29 to June 11 from a sample of 1015.

UPDATE: Full report here.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 28, One Nation 29, Coalition 20 (open thread)

A fifth pollster find One Nation leading on the primary vote, with Pauline Hanson leading on a three-way preferred prime minister question.

The monthly Resolve Strategic poll for Nine Newspapers joins most others in showing One Nation leading on the primary vote in its latest monthly result, with a five-point surge placing them at 29%. Labor is down one to 28%, the Coalition are down three to 20% (16% among women, equal with the Greens), and the Greens are steady on 12%.

Anthony Albanese’s combined very good and good rating is up one to 35%, while his poor and very poor rating is down one to 55%. Angus Taylor is respectively up one to 38% and up three to 32%. This pollster has been unusual in having Angus Taylor leading Anthony Albanese on preferred prime minister and does so again now, though the margin has narrowed from 33-30 to 32-31. A three-way preferred prime minister question, asked for the first time, suggests most of those favouring Taylor over Albanese in fact prefer Pauline Hanson to either: she is at 33% compared with 29% for Albanese and 16% for Taylor.

The poll again inquired about the three main contentious budget measures, finding 33% in favour of the negative gearing changes (down two on last month) with 26% opposed (up five); 31% in favour of the capital gains tax measures (down five) and 31% opposed (up 10); and 29% in favour of the changes to taxing of family trusts (down five) and 34% opposed (up 11). The poll was conducted Monday to Saturday from a sample of 1801.

DemosAU: Labor 21, Coalition 30, One Nation 23 in Victoria

With less than five months to go, a second Victorian state poll finds Labor running third behind One Nation.

A two-month Victorian state polling drought has ended with a bang, with Freshwater Strategy reporting earlier in the week, DemosAU doing so today, and Resolve Strategic presumably set to follow next week. All of which would seem to be an unwelcome development for Jacinta Allan, with DemosAU joining Freshwater Strategy in showing Labor running third behind One Nation. The Coalition is up a point on the last DemosAU poll in February to 30%, with Labor down two to 21% and One Nation up two to 23%, and the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 53-47 to 55-45.

Jacinta Allan’s positive rating is up two to 18%, but her negative rating is up four to 57% with neutral down six to 25%. Jess Wilson is up five on positive to 32%, down three on neutral to 46% and down two on negative to 22%. The poll was conducted Sunday to Thursday from a sample of 1056. A full report including extensive demographic breakdowns will presumably be available on the pollster’s website shortly – Freshwater Strategy has now published its equivalent from the poll earlier in the week.

Morgan: Labor 26, One Nation 29.5, Coalition 17.5 (open thread)

The latest Roy Morgan poll supports trends now clearly established elsewhere, with One Nation first and the Coalition a very distant third.

The weekly Roy Morgan series joins Newspoll, YouGov, RedBridge Group and DemosAU in having One Nation leading on the primary vote, surging two-and-a-half points to 29.5%, with Labor down a point to 26% and the Coalition down two-and-a-half to 17.5%. The latter result is half-a-point off the record worst poll result the Coalition recorded in a RedBridge Group poll in March, and puts them barely ahead of the Greens, up two to 15.5%. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1631. A Labor-versus-One Nation two-party result has Labor leading 53.5-46.5 – I’m unclear if this is respondent-allocated or based on speculative estimates. Conventional two-party results have Labor leading the Coalition 56-44 on respondent-allocated (out from 55.5-44.5) and 54-46 using previous election preference flows (out from 53.5-46.5).

The Australian Electoral Commission has published finalised results from the Farrer by-election, so we now have the preference distribution and preference-flow-by-candidate data. The latter reveals that Liberal preferences recorded a surprisingly evenly 59.0-41.0 split in favour of One Nation winner David Farley over independent Michelle Milthorpe, compared with 69.1-30.9 among Nationals voters. The split among Greens voters was fully 91.8-8.2 in favour of Milthorpe.

DemosAU: LNP 34, Labor 25, One Nation 24 in Queensland

After a close escape at the Stafford by-election, another poll points to a weakening position for state Labor in Queensland.

We can expect quite a bit in the way of state polling over the coming weeks, with today’s Freshwater Strategy result for Victoria to be joined soon by another result for the state from Resolve Strategic, and DemosAU/Premier National promising a round of state polling as per its quarterly schedule. The first of the latter is a result for Queensland that has One Nation gaining three points to 24%, which comes at the expense of Labor, down three to 25%, rather than the Liberal National Party, steady on 34%. The Greens are likewise steady on 10%. A conventional two-party preferred result has the LNP leading Labor 58-42, out from 56-44 in the last poll and from 53.8-46.2 at the October 2024 election. David Crisafulli holds a 47-30 lead over Steven Miles on preferred premier, out from 43-32. The poll was conducted May 27 to June 3 from a sample of 1033. Voting intention breakdowns and further results on state direction and issue salience are available in the full report.

Further Queensland electoral news:

• The final result of the May 16 Stafford by-election was a 1.4% winning margin for Luke Richmond, who retained the seat against a 3.8% swing. Liberal National Party candidate Fiona Hammond outpolled Richmond 40.3% to 30.8% on first preferences, but in the absence of One Nation the minor party and independent vote was overwhelmingly left-wing, with preferences flowing accordingly.

• The Queensland Redistribution Commission will release its final determination of the redistribution of state electoral boundaries in “mid-2026”. With the Ipswich region seat of Jordan to be divided between the new seats of Springfield and Greenbank, the Courier-Mail’s George Street Beat column reported on a push within the Left to force Charis Mullen, the Right-aligned member for Jordan, to run for the less safe seat of Greenbank so as to make Springfield available to Ipswich councillor Pye Augustine.

• The Sunday Mail reports expectations that LNP members John-Paul Langbroek (Surfers Paradise), Ros Bates (Mudgeeraba) and Fiona Simpson (Maroochydore) will retire at the next election.

Freshwater Strategy: Labor 23, Coalition 27, One Nation 25 in Victoria

A new Victorian state poll finds Labor running third and 62% backing Jacinta Allan being replaced before the November election.

The Herald Sun has a Freshwater Strategy poll of state voting intention in Victoria that has Labor sinking four points from the last such poll in March to 23%, the Coalition down three to 27%, and One Nation up five to 25%. The report does not provide a result for the Greens, but the Coalition is credited with a 53-47 two-party preferred.

Jess Wilson’s lead over Jacinta Allan as preferred premier has blown out from 47-31 to 49-25, an unusually wide lead for an Opposition Leader over an incumbent. Allan’s net approval rating is down from minus 32 to minus 37, while Wilson’s is down from plus 18 to plus 15. Sixty-two per cent favoured dumping Allan before the November election, including 39% among Labor voters. The poll was conducted between Friday and today from a sample of 1034 – there are a few missing threads, so hopefully we will be hearing more from the print edition or directly from the pollster. I believe we will also see a Resolve Strategic bi-monthly state poll result from Nine Newspapers next week.

Other Victorian electoral news:

• A bill to re-establish a campaign finance regime was passed last week, after the relevant parts of the Electoral Act were struck down wholesale by the High Court in April. The bill restores various aspects of the old system, though not the one that prompted the court ruling, namely the exemption of the major parties’ investment funds from a $4950 cap on political donations over a four-year electoral cycle. It increases the cap to $7500, and also increases annual “administrative expenditure” funding (as distinct from the public election funding based on how many votes a party or candidate receives) from a maximum $1.775 million to $2.765 million. The donation cap is doubled for new candidates and parties and set at a transitional $10,000 for the current cycle. The Greens argued the donation cap down from $10,000 in agreeing to a deal with Labor that froze out the Coalition, who wanted it much higher. The Liberals are particularly aggrieved because the High Court ruling has cut them off from a major source of their funding.

• Merri-bek councillor Katerine Theodosis is Labor’s candidate to succeed the retiring Danny Pearson in Essendon. The Australian’s Victoria Ink column reported in late April that Theodosis was assured of the backing of the national executive after winning the support of the Right faction Australian Workers Union, and that the resulting fait accompli was inflaming resentment among local members already aggrieved by the circumstances in which Jo Briskey succeeded Bill Shorten in the federal seat of Maribyrnong. Pearson appeared to associate himself with Daniel White, a former staffer to Bill Shorten and rival aspirant for the AWU’s support.

• Labor’s new candidate for South Barwon is Rebecca Thistleton, a former Australian Financial Review journalist and state government media adviser who ran unsuccessfully in Melbourne in 2022. The seat’s incumbent is Darren Cheeseman, who was required to resign from the Labor party room in April 2024. Elsewhere, the difficult task of defending a 0.4% margin in Pakenham upon the retirement of Emma Vulin falls to Alessandra Soliven, a 23-year-old Philippines-born former electorate officer and Australian Services Union organiser; and a 0.3% margin in neighbouring Bass will be defended by Chris Buckingham, a gender equity training facilitator with Gippsland Women’s Health, following the retirement of Jordan Crugnale.

• Labor’s candidate for Brunswick is Gabriel Steger, an adviser to federal Cooper MP Ged Kearney, whom the Brunswick Voice reports was preselected unopposed. The seat will be vacated with the retirement of two-term Greens member Tim Read, and as with other Greens-held seats, it will be easier for Labor to win if the Liberals revert to putting the Greens last on their how-to-vote cards, a practice they departed from in 2022.

• The Liberal candidate for Ashwood is former Monash councillor Theo Zographos, who was cast aside in favour of the late Katie Allen as the party’s candidate for the federal seat of Chisholm after Allan’s former seat of Higgins was abolished. Other Liberal candidates for Labor-held seats include Paul Byrnes, a public service legal officer and former staffer to Matthew Bach and Mary Wooldridge, in Eltham; Clare Fitzmaurice, policy adviser to federal MP Anne Webster, in Monbulk; Bass Coast mayor Rochelle Halstead in Bass; David Kitchen, finance manager for a food processing company, in Bayswater; Steve Martin, an engineering manager who ran for the federal seat of Indi in 2019, in Benambra; and Max Williams, owner of a boutique communications consultancy, in Rowville.

• There have been recent retirement announcements from Tim Bull of the Nationals after 16 years as member for Gippsland East, and Gary Maas of Labor after eight years in Narre Warren South.

• The Australian’s Victoria Ink column reports Merri-bek councillor and former mayor Oscar Yildiz, who polled 23.5% as an independent in Pascoe Vale in 2018, is “preparing to launch an independent bid for Essendon”.

• One Nation is yet to announce any candidates, but has declared itself intent on contesting every seat.

Newspoll: Labor 30, One Nation 31, Coalition 18 (open thread)

Another pollster finds One Nation surging to a primary vote lead, and Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings continuing to sag.

Newspoll in The Australian becomes the latest pollster to have One Nation leading on the primary vote, recording a four-point surge to 31% with Labor down one to 30%, the Coalition down two to 18% and the Greens down one to 11%. Anthony Albanese records his worst net leadership rating to date, with approval down four to 36% and disapproval up three to 60%, while Angus Taylor is down one on approval to 35% and down three on disapproval to 45%. Albanese’s lead on preferred prime minister is in from 46-38 to 44-38. The poll was conducted Monday to Thursday from a sample of 1240.

US California jungle primary live

Two Democrats and one Republican seek to win two runoff spots in California’s gubernatorial primary. Also: can Andy Burnham win the UK Makerfield by-election to become an MP?

Live Commentary

1:48pm Tuesday As this thread has dropped to fourth on the main page, I’m going to discontinue coverage. I wrote about California and Makerfield for The Conversation today.

10:23am Monday After trailing the right-wing Pratt by 30.0-20.3 on election night in the race for the second runoff position for LA Mayor, the left-wing Raman now leads Pratt by 27.1-26.7 with 83% in. Given the way late counting is behaving, Raman is virtually certain to make the runoff. Incumbent Bass has secured the first runoff position with 34.7%.

10:51am Sunday With 78% now in for LA mayor, it’s 34.8% Bass, 27.3% Pratt and 26.2% Raman. Raman is likely to pass Pratt and win the second runoff spot.

12:22pm With 68% counted statewide in California, Dem Becerra has overtaken Rep Hilton for first place in the gubernatorial primary, by 26.8% to 26.4% with 21.1% for Dem Steyer and 10.8% for Rep Hilton. Hilton had led by over two points. Steyer still has a chance to make the runoff instead of Hilton.

For Los Angeles Mayor, with 71% in, incumbent Bass has 35.0%, right-wing challenger Pratt 28.2% and left-wing challenger Raman 24.9%. Raman has been winning late batches by enough that she’s now the favourite to finish second and make the runoff.

In the special election for California’s first, with 71% in, Rep Gallagher has 61.1% and will be elected without a runoff. Two Dems combined have 37.1%, with the overall 62.1-37.1 Rep margin (25.0 points) matching Trump’s 2024 margin. The Rep margin will probably drop as more votes are counted.

9:39am Saturday With 66% now in for California’s sixth, Dem Pan takes the lead for the second runoff place from Rep Stansfield. Vote shares are now 25.4% for Rep turned ind Kiley, 22.8% Pan and 21.2% Stansfield, with Dems having the remaining votes. Given the trend in late counting, Pan is now virtually certain to make the runoff, and will be heavily favoured to win the November general election in this seat that was gerrymandered to favour Dems.

9:56am Friday In the UK, a new Survation poll of Makerfield gives Andy Burnham a 49-39 lead over Reform, with 8% for Restore and 1-2% for the Greens, Lib Dems and Tories. Burnham’s lead is up from 43-40 in the mid-May Survation poll.

10:38am Thursday Dems could have a problem in California’s sixth, which was gerrymandered to favour Dems. With 48% in, Rep turned ind Kiley leads with 26.8%, followed by Rep Stansfield with 22.2%. The rest of the field is all Dems, but the leading Dem Pan has 21.2%, which means he will miss the runoff if the current result holds. The two counties that have the large majority of votes in this seat won’t report new votes until Saturday AEST.

3:18pm The California results now are unlikely to change until we get a large amount of late counting. So I’ll adjourn this live blog for now.

2:50pm Dems may miss an opportunity to gain the 40th federal district. Two Rep incumbents were drawn into this one district by gerrymandering. With 46% in, Rep Calvert has 35.5%, Rep Kim 20.4%. The remaining vote is nearly all Dems, but the lead Dem has 16.4%. On current counting, this will be a Rep vs Rep general election.

2:26pm For Los Angeles mayor, with 47% in, incumbent Karen Bass has 36.6%, right-wing challenger Spencer Pratt 30.0% and left-wing challenger Nithya Raman 20.3%. Even if Raman beats Pratt on late counting, Bass should win the general easily.

2:16pm For California governor, with nearly all counties reporting and 47% counted overall, it’s 26.7% Rep Hilton, 25.9% Dem Becerra, 19.7% Dem Steyer and 11.2% Rep Bianco. Steyer needs a big shift from late counting to make the top two, otherwise it will be Becerra vs Hilton in the general.

2:03pm In California 1, with 47% in (results from all counties in this district), Rep Gallagher has 61.3%. Reps overall lead Dems here by 62.5-36.6. On current counting, that’s a small swing to Reps from the 2024 pres election here, but Dems may perform better on post-election day counting.

1:31pm In the California 1 special, with 36% in, Rep Gallagher has 59.6% and is likely to win an overall majority avoiding a runoff in two months.

1:28pm Los Angeles county has reported. With 31% overall in, 27.0% Becerra, 25.6% Hilton, 20.2% Steyer and 9.8% Bianco. The top two qualify for the November general election.

1:23pm With 17% in, 28.9% Hilton, 25.0% Becerra, 18.2% Steyer and 11.7% for Rep Bianco. Nothing yet from Los Angeles.

1:14pm With an estimated 6% in for California governor, Rep Hilton leads with 27.7%, followed by Dems Becerra at 24.5% and Steyer at 17.3%. Urban centres are not yet included.

11:07am Early mail votes will be released soon after polls close in California at 1pm. Votes cast on election day will report later today, but that will only take the California count to about half complete. The New York Times suggests it will take ten days for the count to be 95% complete.

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.

Polls close at 1pm AEST today for California’s jungle primary. At a jungle primary all candidates compete together, and the top two, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.

The main interest will be the California gubernatorial primary. In April it was plausible that Republicans Hilton and Bianco could both advance. But Democrats Becerra and Steyer have both surged in the polls. The Fiftyplusone aggregate has Hilton at 22.2%, Becerra 21.6%, Steyer 19.4% and Bianco well behind with 11.6%. At least one Democrat will advance, avoiding a strongly Democratic state having an all-Republican gubernatorial general election.

Other contests in California will use the same system. If two Democrats or two Republicans advance to the runoff in a competitive seat, that’s a disaster for the opposite party. The first round of a special election in California’s first federal seat will also be today, with a runoff on August 4 if nobody wins a majority, after the Republican incumbent died in January.

At the 2024 presidential election, California’s first voted for Donald Trump by 61.1-36.1 over Kamala Harris, a 24.9-point margin. This seat has been gerrymandered to favour Democrats, with the new lines giving Harris a 12.2-point margin, but these lines won’t apply to the special election. Two Republicans and two Democrats are standing, with Republican Gallagher likely to dominate the Republican vote and win an outright majority.

Republicans currently hold a 218-212 majority in the House of Representatives with four other vacancies. The jungle primary for Democrat Swalwell’s California 14 is on June 16 with a runoff if needed on August 18 after Swalwell resigned in April. A jungle primary will occur in Georgia 13 on July 28 with a runoff if needed on August 25 after the Democratic incumbent died in April.

I wrote for The Conversation on May 15 about two recent court decisions that will result in the federal House map for the 2026 midterm elections favouring Republicans. On April 30, the US Supreme Court allowed southern states to axe their Black seats and on May 8 the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a Democratic 10-1 gerrymander of Virginia’s 11 House seats, despite this gerrymander passing at a referendum.

As a result of these decisions, Democrats need to win the House popular vote by at least four points to have a good chance to win a House majority at November’s midterm elections. In Nate Silver’s aggregate of generic ballot polls, Democrats lead Republicans by 48.6-41.6, a 7.0-point margin. That’s the biggest lead for Democrats this cycle. Trump’s net approval in Silver’s aggregate has improved slightly to -19.0 from a low of -20.2 on May 19.

Democrats need four gains to control the Senate. On national polling, North Carolina and Maine should be gains while other Republican-held states need at least a double-digit Democratic margin to fall. Controversial Democratic and Republican nominees in Maine and Texas respectively could make Maine harder for Democrats and Texas easier.

UK: Can Andy Burnham win the Makerfield by-election?

After dire results for Labour at the May 7 Welsh and Scottish parliamentary elections and English local elections, there has been renewed pressure on PM Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is seen as the most likely challenger to Starmer, but he needs a seat in the House of Commons first.

On May 14, Labour MP Josh Simons resigned Makerfield to allow Burnham to become an MP if he wins the June 18 by-election. Starmer didn’t attempt to block Burnham, unlike for the February Gorton and Denton by-election. At the 2024 general election, Labour defeated the populist right Reform in Makerfield by 45.2-31.8 with 10.9% for the Conservatives, 6.8% Liberal Democrats and 4.4% Greens. But at the May local elections, Reform won 50% in the eight wards within Makerfield.

A small-sample Survation poll of Makerfield in mid-May gave Burnham a 43-40 lead over Reform, with 7% for Restore (another populist right party), 4% Lib Dems, 3% Greens and 2% Conservatives. In the Election Maps UK aggregate of national polls, Reform leads with 27.7%, followed by Labour at 19.3%, the Conservatives 18.1%, the Greens 14.0%, the Lib Dems 12.3% and Restore 2.9%. The Greens have slid from a high of 15.9% in early April.

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