US polls after passage of Trump’s legislation

Donald Trump’s ratings are little changed since the passage of his “big beautiful bill”. Also covered: a UK Labour defection to a potential Jeremy Corbyn-led party.

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.

Republicans won the US House of Representatives by 220-215 over Democrats at the November 2024 elections, but they currently hold a 220-212 margin owing to three Democratic deaths where the previous member has not yet been replaced at special elections.

On July 3, the House passed the Senate’s version of Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill (BBB)” by 218-214, with just two Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. In the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 margin after the 2024 elections, what Democrats call the “big ugly bill” passed by 51-50 on Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote. Three Republicans had joined all Democrats in opposition. One Republican senator and one House member voted against from the right.

In Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls, Trump’s net approval is currently -6.7, with 51.4% disapproving and 44.7% approving. Trump’s ratings have barely changed since the BBB was passed, although there haven’t been many recent polls owing to the July 4 US holiday.

In a July 4-7 YouGov poll, Americans were opposed to the BBB by 53-35. On the deficit, 52% thought it would increase due to the BBB, 11% remain about the same and 19% decrease. By 52-28, respondents thought the BBB would hurt the average American, and by 42-24 they thought it would hurt “you and your immediate family”.

The BBB’s passage wasn’t Trump’s only recent victory. The Supreme Court currently has a 6-3 majority for right-wing judges, and they ruled on June 27 by this 6-3 margin that lower court judges cannot now issue nationwide injunctions. Trump’s policies will be harder to challenge in courts.

Musk’s new party and NYC mayoral general election

In other US news, Elon Musk has formed a new party called the “America Party” that will contest the 2026 midterm elections. Musk’s net favourability in Silver’s tracker is currently -21.8, with 56.4% unfavourable and 34.7% favourable. It’s unlikely that his party will succeed with Musk unpopular, but it’s more likely to take votes from Republicans than Democrats.

Socialist Zohran Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo by 56.0-44.0 after preferences to win the June 24 New York City Democratic mayoral nomination. The general election will be held on November 4 using first past the post. Cuomo and current mayor Eric Adams, who was elected as a Democrat, will be running as independents, and there’s also a Republican. Polls suggest Cuomo is Mamdani’s biggest threat, but Mamdani may prevail owing to vote splitting between the more conservative candidates.

UK Labour MP defects

On July 3, UK Labour MP Zarah Sultana defected from Labour and announced she would join a potential party led by Jeremy Corbyn. In 2017, the Conservatives suffered a surprise loss of their majority in the House of Commons to Corbyn’s Labour, but Boris Johnson thumped Labour in 2019, ending Corbyn’s leadership. Corbyn was expelled by Labour, but retained his seat at the 2024 election as an independent.

A late June More in Common poll gave a Corbyn-led party 10% of the national vote, with the far-right Reform on 27% (unchanged from the standard poll), Labour 20% (down three), the Conservatives 20% (unchanged), the Liberal Democrats 14% (unchanged) and the Greens 5% (down four).

The Election Maps UK national poll aggregate has Reform leading with 28.8%, with Labour at 24.1%, the Conservatives 17.7%, the Lib Dems 14.2% and the Greens 8.5%. Reform has been the clear leader since the early May local elections. Most recent polls give Labour leader and PM Keir Starmer a net approval below -30

Labour won 411 of the 650 House of Commons seats at the July 2024 election, and they currently have 403 MPs. Despite Labour’s big majority, Starmer was forced into making major concessions to get his welfare reform bill past the second reading on July 1. But 49 Labour MPs still rebelled and it was opposed by all other parties, so it passed by a 335-260 margin.

The Guardian reported Thursday that a Labour-endorsed bill would revert mayoral elections to preferential voting. The Conservatives in 2022 had regressed these elections to FPTP. But Labour has not proposed adopting preferential voting for Commons elections.

Tasmanian election minus nine days

The wind continues to favour the Liberals ahead of next week’s Tasmanian state election, if the party’s own polling is to be believed.

The Mercury today reports on a third round of EMRS polling for the Liberal Party, the previous two of which were detailed in the previous post, with the latest encompassing a sample of 518 (the first two were reportedly 550) surveyed from Sunday to Tuesday. The latest result has a reported Liberal lead of 37% to 26%, out from 34.5% to 28.2% in the June 29 to July 1 round, with the Greens up from 13.9% to 15%, independents effectively unchanged at 18%, and the Nationals managing only 3% (remembering that they are contesting only three of the five divisions). Jeremy Rockliff leads Dean Winter 43-30 as preferred premier, in from 45-29 in the first round of polling a fortnight. The report is currently available only in the print edition but will likely be in the online edition by morning.

The Australia Institute has also been ekeing out result of a YouGov poll of 842 respondents conducted from June 12 to 16, which have not encompassed voting intention. The latest batch finds 55% believe Labor should attempt to form a minority government with Greens and independent support if unable to win a majority, with only 31% disagreeing, as compared with a respective 48% and 37% for the Liberal Party. An earlier round had 74% agreeing salmon companies should have to pay royalties for leases over public waters and 14% disagreeing, following a question saying economist Saul Eslake thought it a good idea, and 36% favouring “seeking more federal funding” as the best response to budgetary challenges, ahead of 29% for increasing mining royalties and 12% with replacing stamp duty with land tax on primary residences.

DemosAU: 59-41 to Labor (open thread)

The third pollster to take to the field since the federal election gives Labor its strongest result to date.

DemosAU has published its first federal poll since the election, producing Labor’s strongest result to date: a two-party lead of 59-41, compared with an election result of 55.2-44.8, from primary votes of Labor 36% (34.6% at the election), Coalition 26% (31.8%), Greens 14% (12.2%) and One Nation 9% (6.4%). The accompanying release has breakdowns by gender, age, education and residential tenure. The poll was conducted Saturday and Sunday from a sample of 1199.

Victorian polls: Newspoll and RedBridge Group

The first two Victorian state polls since the federal election find Labor back on top, though Newspoll suggests Jacinta Allan remains a liability.

Two new Victorian state polls suggest Labor has re-established its dominance in the state, despite the evident handicap of Jacinta Allan’s unpopularity. Newspoll in The Australian has Labor leading the Coalition 53-47, from primary votes of Labor 35%, Coalition 35% and Greens 12%, compared with 2022 election results of Labor 37.0%, Coalition 34.4% and Greens 11.5% and 55.0-45.0 to Labor on two-party preferred. However, Allan records dire personal ratings of 30% approval and 61% disapproval compared with 35% and 40% for Liberal leader Brad Battin, who leads 41-36 as preferred premier. A question on confidence in the Coalition’s readiness to govern breaks 60-40 against. The poll was conducted June 23 to 30 from a sample size to be advised. While there have been numerous Victorian state polls since the last election, I believe this is the first from Newspoll.

The Herald-Sun reports a RedBridge Group poll crediting Labor with a lead of 51.5-48.5, reversing a 51-49 deficit in the last such poll in April. Labor is up four on the primary vote 33%, with the Coalition down three to 38% and the Greens up one to 14%. Twenty-seven per cent say the Allan government has the right focus and priorities, with 55% holding a contrary view, while 26% think the Coalition deserves to win the next election, 45% holding otherwise. The poll was conducted June 19 to 30 from a sample of 1183.

UPDATE (8/7): The Australian has further results from Newspoll, finding 59% support for the Suburban Rail Loop with 32% opposed, and asking if respondents were “worried” or “confident” in four different policy areas: state debt (78% worried, 13% confident), law and order (76% worried, 20% confident), hospitals (71% worried, 25% confident) and housing (78% worried, 16% confident).

Tasmanian election minus two weeks

A surge in pre-polling, duelling poll results, and Liberal claims a high-profile Labor candidate is ineligible.

At the end of the first week of the three-week early voting period, the Tasmanian Electoral Commission relates that 16,817 votes have already been cast at pre-poll voting centres, more than double the 7,650 from the equivalent stage of last year’s election. There is no further news on the polling front, which doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, unless you count a social media post from RedBridge Group director Kos Samaras saying he “believe(s) there is another in the field (not ours) that has the Liberals in front by a fair chunk”, which would be consistent with the DemosAU poll and inconsistent with YouGov. The indefatigable Kevin Bonham says he is “aware of a third (private) poll which I may say more about that falls somewhere between these two, with a far lower but still quite high independent vote (around 12%) and the Liberals slightly ahead, with both majors in the low 30s”.

The dominant electoral story of the past week is the Liberal Party’s suggestion that it will challenge the eligibility of Jessica Munday, high-profile non-incumbent Labor candidate for Franklin, on the grounds that her seat on the WorkCover Tasmania board constitutes an office of profit under the Crown. This would presumably involve a challenge through the Court of Disputed Returns in the event that she is elected, which if upheld could lead to another candidate being declared elected or a fresh election being held in Franklin. Kevin Bonham notes the obvious recourse of a recount of the existing votes, as occurs when a seat falls vacant, “would be unsatisfactory as this would reward a party that had run an ineligible high-profile candidate”.

A legal opinion prepared for the Liberal Party goes so far as to raise the prospect of “the result of the general election across all electoral divisions being declared void”, which from this bush lawyer’s perspective seems a bit of a stretch – a view that has the concurrence of Kevin Bonham (again). Labor has responded with legal advice from former Solicitor-General Michael O’Farrell endorsing its position that a constitutional amendment from 1944 distinguishes the state provision from its federal equivalent, such that it does not apply to Munday’s case.

UPDATE (6/7): The Sunday Tasmanian today reports on two rounds of recent EMRS polling for the Liberal Party, from samples of 550 each. The more recent, from June 29 to July 1, had the Liberals leading Labor 34.5% to 28.2%, with the Greens on (I gather) 13.9% and independents on 17.8%. An earlier round from June 15 to 17 had the Liberals on 32.3%, Labor on 28.7%, the Greens on 14.0% and independents on 19.2%. The Nationals hardly registered in either. Results from Franklin, which one would hope combine the samples from both polls, are Liberal 39.2%, Labor 23.0%, Greens 16.1% and independents 21.7%, with the Liberals seemingly expecting a result of Liberal three, Labor one, Greens one and David O’Byrne one, with the last seat a race between independent candidate Peter George and a second Labor candidate. The Liberals are “hopeful of picking up a fourth seat in Braddon after seeing the EMRS results and believe they are also a chance of securing a fourth in Bass”.

DemosAU: Liberal 34.0, Labor 26.3, Greens 15.1 in Tasmania

A second poll for the Tasmanian state election is much more encouraging for the Liberals than the first, with both recording strong support for independents.

Results from a second poll of the Tasmanian election campaign, conducted by DemosAU for an unidentified peak body, have been published in full by Pulse Tasmania, providing breakdowns by division from substantial sub-samples, the overall sample being 4289. The results are markedly more favourable to the Liberals than the YouGov poll, though both have similar field work periods: June 19 to 26 for DemosAU, June 15 to 25 for YouGov. Both major parties are down on the 2024 result, the Coalition from 36.7% to 34.0% and Labor from 29.0% to 26.3%, with the Greens up from 13.9% to 15.0% and independents from 9.6% to 19.3%.

The tables below account for both pollsters’ divisional breakdowns, together with the results from 2024 election.

LIB ALP GRN IND NAT SFF JLN
DemosAU
Bass 33.5 27.5 18.8 11.1 5.1 4
Braddon 44 25.2 9.3 15.6 2.6 3.3
Clark 26.2 23.6 22.7 27.5
Franklin 29.1 22.6 12.9 35.4
Lyons 35.9 31.9 13.1 8.4 3.7 7
TOTAL 34 26.3 15.1 19.3 2.3 3
YouGov
Bass 36 34 12 15
Braddon 35 34 5 19
Clark 24 27 17 30
Franklin 31 38 9 20
Lyons 34 34 13 15
TOTAL 31 34 13 18
2024 election
Bass 38 29.8 12 8 2.4 8.1
Braddon 45.6 24.7 6.6 7.5 2.9 11.4
Clark 27.1 30.5 20.9 17.6 1.5
Franklin 34 27.3 19.8 11.8 4.9
Lyons 37.6 32.8 10.9 4 4.8 8.3
TOTAL 36.7 29 13.9 9.6 2.3 6.7

My own take on how the DemosAU result would play out is that the Liberals could just about hope to maintain their 14 seats, or fall one short; Labor would likely be up one to 11; the Greens could win five six, depending on whether the Liberals get 14 or 13; there would be five independents, up from three; and the Nationals would fail in their bid to account for three seats currently held by the Jacqui Lambie Network. YouGov suggests it’s Labor that could get to 14, reducing the Liberals to 12, the Greens to five and independents to four. To summarise:

Bass. Both polls, though especially YouGov, had an independent vote high enough to suggest that former Jacqui Lambie Network member Rebekah Pentland has some hope of retaining her seat as an independent. Whereas DemosAU suggests this would be in the context of a status quo result (three Liberal, two Labor, one Greens plus Pentland), the YouGov poll, both in terms of its small-sample breakdown and its general thrust, suggests Labor has some hope of taking a seat off the Liberals. The DemosAU poll suggests a second seat for the Greens would in fact be more likely than a third for Labor.

Braddon. Both polls suggest the issue is what will become of the seat won in 2024 by the Jacqui Lambie Network, with DemosAU finding little encouragement for the Nationals in their bid to fill the gap. DemosAU suggests it will come down to a race between a fourth Liberal and a seat for the presently unrepresented Greens, while YouGov’s breakdown suggests a third seat for Labor. Both are encouraging for independent incumbent Craig Garland.

Clark. DemosAU’s 27.5% independent result, which almost matches YouGov’s 30%, suggests incumbent Kristie Johnston will be joined by former senior Liberal Elise Archer, although a lot depends on how it breaks down. With the Liberals over two quotas and Labor and the Greens not far off, the result suggests an independent could poll relatively strongly but still fall short – a status quo result.

Franklin. DemosAU has an extraordinary 35.4% for independents, which suggests that Peter George’s ticket will perform very strongly without depriving independent incumbent David O’Byrne, or win a second seat if it does. The remainder would have Liberal down from three to two, and Labor and the Greens unchanged on two and one. Conversely, the YouGov numbers suggest a third seat for Labor at the expense of a second independent.

Lyons. Here the DemosAU result allows for an independent only if one out of the seven ungrouped contenders dominates the others. Otherwise it looks more like three each for Liberal and Labor (a gain of one in Labor’s case) and one for the Greens. YouGov’s numbers suggest an independent win to be more likely without offering clarity as to whether Liberal or Labor would be reduced to two seats.

RedBridge Group: 55.5-44.5 to Labor (open thread)

The second pollster to take the field since the election confirms Labor’s dominance, plus an update on prospects for a legal challenge to the result in Bradfield.

The Financial Review has the results of a large-sample poll from RedBridge Group, the second pollster to take the field post-election after Roy Morgan. The results are not far off Roy Morgan’s: Labor on 37%, compared with 34.6% at the election; the Coalition on 31%, compared with 31.8%; and the Greens on 11%, compared with 12.2%. Labor is credited with a 55.5-44.5 lead on two-party preferred, compared with an election result of 55.2-44.8 – lower than I might have expected based on preference flows from the recent election, but perhaps explicable by One Nation accounting for a larger share of “others”. Breakdowns are more balanced than you might expect with regard to gender, but results by age tell a familiar story of the Coalition vote descending from 44% among the 65+ cohort to 19% among 18-to-34, the Greens rising from 2% to 24%, and Labor fairly consistent across the board. The poll was conducted “late June” from a sample of 4036.

Another item of federally relating polling emerges from a report by Alexandra Smith of the Sydney Morning Herald on debate within the Liberal Party over whether to challenge independent Nicolette Boele’s 26-vote win in Bradfield in court. Local branch presidents are calling on the party to put up the money, but others consider this “a risk financially and politically”. The report cites polling conducted in mid-June for Climate 200 which suggests Boele would likely win a by-election resulting from a legal challenge, with her primary vote up from 27.0% at the election to 33.2%, with Gisele Kapterian’s 37.3% comparing with an election result of 38.0%.

Morgan: 57.5-42.5 to Labor (open thread)

Roy Morgan’s third poll since the election appears to portend a return to its usual weekly schedule.

It appears Roy Morgan may have resumed its weekly federal polling schedule, offering a new poll conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1522. This is consistent with its pre-election form and in contrast with its other two polls since the election, which had longer field work periods and bigger samples. The results, however, are much the same: Labor leads 57.5-42.5 on two-party preferred (56.5-43.5 when based on preference flows at the election rather than respondent allocation), in from 58-42 in last week’s result, from primary votes of Labor 36.5% (down one), Coalition 30.5% (down half) and Greens 12% (steady), although One Nation perks up two-and-a-half points to 8.5%.

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