Victorian polls: RedBridge Group and Resolve Strategic

Plus preselection developments and retirement announcements ahead of the November 28 state election.

Two new state poll results for Victoria, with the November 28 election now only a little two months away (and my state election guide on the way shortly):

• The Financial Review has a RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll that as the Coalition down a point to 29%, One Nation up three to 25% (after a four-point dip last time), Labor up a point to 24% and the Greens up a point to 15%. Respondent-allocated two-party preferred measures have the Coalition leading Labor 56-44, but Labor leading One Nation 53-47. The poll was conducted September 1 to 14 from a sample of 2371. RedBridge Group’s Kos Samaras offers an exposition on the results and promises more detail to follow.

• Nine Newspapers’ Resolve Strategic series, which is reporting Victorian state results on a monthly basis until the election, records little change on last time, with Labor steady on 25%, the Coalition up a point to 28%, One Nation steady on 23% and the Greens steady on 12%. Jess Wilson is up two on preferred premier to 28%, with Ben Carroll unchanged on 20% and One Nation’s Warren Pickering down two to 8%, leaving an unchanged 44% undecided. Further questions find 49% favouring pausing or cancelling the Suburban Rail Loop, with 27% preferring that it proceed as planned; 35% support for the government’s policy to fund dental care clinics, with 43% favouring its cancellation. The poll was conducted Sunday to Saturday from a sample of 967.

• There is also a result from Roy Morgan that combines 643 responses from a full year of polling in the Greens-held seats of Melbourne, Brunswick and Richmond, which finds the Greens on 41%, Labor on 35%, the Liberals on 14% and One Nation on 2%. The combined result across the three seats in 2022 was Greens 38.7%, Labor 30.6% and Liberal 15.7%.

Other recent election-related news:

• After a long period of holding its fire, One Nation has lately been unveiling lower house candidates on its website. One such is Michael Piastrino, an Albert Park hairdressing salon owner who demonstrated a penchant for Trumpian rhetoric as Liberal candidate for Daniel Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave in 2022, who is running against former Liberal leader in Berwick.

• The Australian’s Victoria Ink column reports the only nominee to succeed Jacinta Allan as Labor candidate in Bendigo East is Timothy Rickwood, a teacher at Bendigo Senior Secondary College who shares Allan’s alignment with the Socialist Left.

• In Bendigo West, where Labor member Maree Edwards likewise announced last month that she would not seek re-election, the the two nominees for preselection are Brenton Baldwin, a former staffer to Jenny Mikakos, and Toby Heydon, who serves Forest Creek ward on Mount Alexander Shire Council.

• Controversial Liberal-turned-independent upper house MP Moira Deeming has joined Family First and will seek re-election in Western Metropolitan region as its lead candidate.

• David Ettershank, who holds an upper house seat in Western Metropolitan for Legalise Cannabis, has announced he will not seek re-election.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 28, One Nation 27, Coalition 24 (open thread)

Weaker personal ratings for Anthony Albanese, but little change on voting intention in the monthly Resolve Strategic poll.

The latest monthly federal poll from Resolve Strategic in Nine Newspapers records little change on voting intention, with Labor steady on 28%, One Nation up one to 27%, the Coalition up one to 24% and the Greens down one to 11%. Anthony Albanese’s combined very good and good rating is down three points to 34%, while his poor and very poor rating is steady on 53%; Angus Taylor is respectively down one to 39% and down three to 30%; and Pauline Hanson is respectively up one to 47% and down four to 37%. The now established three-way preferred prime minister question has Albanese down three to 29%, Taylor up two to 21% and Pauline Hanson down one to 25%. The poll was conducted Sunday to Saturday from a sample of 2250; state results for Victoria, and perhaps also New South Wales, should follow over the coming days.

Weekend miscellany: Hastie v Hanson and more (open thread)

Tentative early indications of how the blow-up between Andrew Hastie and One Nation might play out on the political right, plus preselection latest.

Recent items in the news of relevance to a federal election that will presumably be held in early 2028:

• A survey of 1000 prospective One Nation voters conducted recently by former Labor-aligned pollster John Utting and strategist Bruce Hawker was the subject of a comment piece by Peter Hartcher of Nine Newspapers a fortnight ago, which noted that their most favourably viewed public figure after Pauline Hanson was Ben Roberts-Smith, with a favourability approaching 70%. However, another piece by Hartcher today (not yet available online) quotes RedBridge Group pollster Kos Samaras saying his firm’s focus group research suggests “public opinion is siding with Hastie and against Hanson”, on which Samaras further elaborates in a Facebook post.

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is pushing for the Country Liberal Party to delay its preselections until next year at its annual convention this weekend, and cites “senior LNP sources” saying she is canvassing support for a move to a seat in south-eastern Queensland, which Price denies. One possibility raised is Forde on Brisbane’s southern fringe, which Labor gained from the LNP at the 2025 election; another is the Gold Coast seat of Moncrieff, held for the LNP since 2019 by Angie Bell. The column further quotes a “well-placed source” asking, “why the f… isn’t she running in Solomon?”

• InDaily reports Robert Simms, a Greens member for the South Australian state upper house, will nominate to succeed Barbara Pocock as the party’s lead Senate candidate in the state at the next election. Simms had a previous spell in the Senate from 2015 to 2016, filling a casual vacancy and then failing to win re-election from second position on the party ticket at the 2016 double dissolution. The party’s state secretary, Isaac Astill, has also said he will nominate. Pocock announced last month she would not seek re-election, but InDaily reports she will serve out her remaining term.

• The Australian’s Victoria Ink column reports suggestions Mark Dreyfus is manoeuvring for Jim Round, former chief-of-staff to Dreyfus and current chief-of-staff to Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino, to succeed him in his seat of Isaacs at the next election. However, another candidate might be Steve Michelson, a former staffer to Bill Shorten. The seat has traditionally been a preserve of Shorten’s Australian Workers Union sub-faction of the Right, whereas Round is aligned with the Left.

• A by-election is being held today for seat of Mulka in the Northern Territory parliament, eastern Arnhem Land, following the resignation of Yiŋiya Mark Guyula. It is not being contested by the governing Country Liberal Party, leaving two candidates: Labor’s Yiwarr McGrath, described by the ABC as a “nurse and Yolŋu man from remote Elcho Island”, and independent Andrew Blamey, an East Arnhem Regional Council library program assistant.

YouGov: Labor 26, One Nation 30, Coalition 18 (open thread)

Another strong poll result for One Nation in the wake of its Secret Harbour by-election triumph.

The fortnightly YouGov/News24 Pulse poll finds One Nation returning to its June peak, the Coalition only one point up on where it was at the time, and Labor three points lower for its equal worst result of the term. Labor is down three on last fortnight to 26%, with One Nation up four to 30%, the Coalition down three to 18% and the Greens steady on 12%. Labor’s two-party lead over One Nation narrows from 56-44 to 53-47, and its lead over the Coalition is in from 53-47 to 52-48.

Movements on leaders’ ratings are rather more modest: Anthony Albanese is up one on approval to 36% and steady on 59% disapproval; Angus Taylor is up three to 36% and down one to 48%; Albanese’s lead over Taylor is in from 44-37 to 43-39; and his lead over Hanson is in from 52-37 to 51-40. Questions on immigration including a finding that 36% think One Nation would be best to manage it, compared with 18% each for Labor and the Coalition. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to this Tuesday from a sample of 1510.

DemosAU: 56-44 to LNP in Queensland

One Nation takes a dip from recent heights in the latest poll from the movement’s state of origin.

DemosAU had the last in its tranche of quarterly state polls, this time from Queensland, which has the Liberal National Party steady on 34%, Labor up one to 26%, One Nation down three to 21% and the Greens up one to 11%. The LNP’s two-party lead over Labor narrows from 58-42 to 56-44, and David Crisafulli’s lead over Steven Miles as preferred premier narrows from 47-30 to 45-33. Individual leadership ratings, which did not feature last time, have Crisafulli at 42% positive, 28% neutral and 24% negative, and Steven Miles at 30%, 26% and 35%. The poll was conducted August 22 to September 2 from a sample of 1291.

Morgan: Labor 27, One Nation 26.5, Coalition 21.5 (open thread)

A move to Labor from last week fails to stick in the latest result from the Roy Morgan series.

In what looks like a quiet week on the federal polling front, we at least have the regular Roy Morgan poll, which all but erases the lead Labor opened over One Nation last week in having the former down two-and-a-half points to 27% and the latter up three to 26.5%. The Coalition is up a point to 21.5% and the Greens are up one to 14.5%. Labor’s lead over One Nation on the respondent-allocated two-party measure narrows from 55.5-44.5 to 53.5-46.5; over the Coalition, Labor’s lead is in from 56-44 to 53-47 on respondent allocated preferences and from 55-45 to 52.5-47.5 on previous election preference flows. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1541.

German Saxony-Anhalt state election live

The populist right AfD has a realistic chance to win its first ever parliamentary majority at a German state election with just over 40% of votes in polls.

Live Commentary

9:05am Tuesday The UK parliamentary by-election for Holborn and St Pancras will be held on October 8.

12:08pm Turnout for this election was an all-time high of 77.8% (up 17.5% since 2021).

11:19am (Three paragraph entry) With all votes counted, the AfD has won 43.8% of the vote (up 23.0% since 2021), the CDU 17.2% (down 19.9%), the SPD 9.3% (up 0.9%), the Greens 8.9% (up 3.0%), the Left 8.6% (down 2.4%), the BSW 5.3% (new) and the FDP 2.6% (down 3.8%).

Owing to the removal of the extra 14 seats from 2021, seat changes will sum to -14. The AfD won 39 of the 83 seats, three short of a majority (up 16), the CDU 15 (down 25), the SPD eight (down one), the Greens eight (up two), the Left eight (down four), the BSW five (new) and the FDP zero (down seven). To keep the AfD from government will require an alliance of all five non-AfD parliamentary parties.

The AfD did slightly better than polls expected, with the CDU doing much worse. The Greens and BSW also overperformed, with the Left underperforming. The AfD had its highest vote share at a state election and a massive swing to it. In a little good news for the overall German left, the combined vote share for the SPD, Greens and Left was 26.8% (up 1.5%).

10:11am While overall seat numbers are proportional to vote share for parties that pass the 5% threshold, Saxony-Anhalt has 41 single-member seats elected by FPTP. In 2021, the CDU won 40 of these seats to one for the AfD. At this election, the AfD is winning 38 with three for the Left party. In 2021, 14 extra seats were added owing to the overhang caused by the CDU’s dominance of the single-member seats to maintain overall proportionality, but no extra seats will be needed this time, with the minimum 83 total seats elected.

9:42am With 99.6% counted, the BSW is up to 5.3%, ensuring they will win seats and deny the AfD a majority. The AfD has dropped back to 43.9%.

7:17am With 95.1% counted, the BSW remains at 5.2%, above the 5% threshold.

6:53am Monday (two paragraph entry) With 92.3% counted, the AfD has won 45.4% of the votes, but not a majority of seats as six parties cleared the 5% threshold. Current vote shares are 45.4% AfD, 16.5% CDU, 8.9% SPD, 8.8% Greens, 8.3% Left and 5.2% BSW, with the FDP well below the 5% threshold on 2.5%.

Current seats are 39 of 83 for the AfD, below the 42 needed for a majority, 16 CDU, eight SPD, eight Greens, eight Left and four BSW. We’ll need to wait for final results to confirm whether the BSW clears the 5% threshold (they’re at 5.2% currently).

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 2am AEST Monday for today’s German Saxony-Anhalt state election. I will report results after I wake up, which should be before 7am.

This election will be held using statewide proportional representation with a 5% threshold to elect at least 83 MPs. Polls have the populist right AfD surging into the low 40s, far ahead of the conservative governing CDU who are in the low 20s. The Left party is in the low double digits and the centre-left SPD in the high single digits.

Three other parties are at or just below the 5% threshold: the Greens, pro-business FDP and economically left but socially right BSW. The Greens are at 5-6%, BSW at 3-4% and FDP at 3%, so the Greens are more likely than not to clear the threshold. If only the AfD, CDU, Left and SPD clear the threshold, the AfD would have a reasonable chance to win its first ever parliamentary majority in a state election.

At the 2021 Saxony-Anhalt election, the CDU won 40 of the 97 seats on 37.1% of the votes, the AfD 23 on 20.8%, the Left 12 on 11.0%, the SPD nine on 8.4%, the FDP seven on 6.4% and the Greens six on 5.9%. Polls conducted before that election had given the CDU 1-7 point leads over the AfD, much lower than the CDU’s actual 16.3-point margin.

The poll error in 2021 may raise expectations that the AfD will once again underperform their polls. However, it should not be assumed that poll errors will behave the same way from one election to the next. For example, polls at the 2025 Australian federal election understated Labor after overstating them in 2022 and 2019.

In German federal polls, the AfD has taken the lead from the CDU/CSU. At the February 2025 federal election, the CDU/CSU won 28.5% of the vote, the AfD 20.8%, the SPD 16.4%, the Greens 11.6% and the Left 8.8%. A coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD was formed after that election.

Current polls have the AfD rising into the high 20s and the CDU/CSU dropping to the low 20s. There’s been little improvement in the vote share for the combined left (SPD, Greens and Left), with these parties at 40% or below in recent polls (36.8% at the last election).

There are two German state elections on September 20: Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In Berlin, polls have the combined left-wing parties just below 50%, so the left should win that election. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AfD has surged ahead of the SPD after the SPD won the 2021 election by 39.6-16.7 over the AfD. The AfD will probably win the most seats, but be short of a majority.

Swedish election next Sunday

Sweden uses national PR with a 4% threshold to elect its 349 MPs. At the 2022 Swedish election, the conservative Moderates formed a government that was supported by the populist right Sweden Democrats. Polls for next Sunday’s election have the Red-Green bloc of four parties leading the right-wing bloc of four parties by low to high single digit margins. One of the right-wing parties, the Liberals, is consistently polling below the 4% threshold. If they miss the threshold, it will assist the left.

UK by-election for Starmer’s former seat coming soon

Former UK Labour PM Keir Starmer resigned as Member for Holborn and St Pancras last week. A date for the by-election has not yet been set, but it will probably occur in the next month. At the July 2024 UK general election, Starmer won 48.9% in this seat, a left-wing independent 18.9%, the Greens 10.4%, the Conservatives 7.2%, the populist right Reform 6.1% and the Liberal Democrats 5.8%. Greens leader Zack Polanski will contest.

DemosAU: Labor 37, One Nation 25, Liberal 17 in South Australia

A new poll finds Peter Malinauskas and Labor remaining in command in South Australia.

InDaily reports the quarterly South Australian state DemosAU poll has Labor up two to 37%, One Nation down one to 25%, Liberal down one to 17% and the Greens steady on 13%. A two-party preferred result is provided for Labor and One Nation, with Labor’s lead out from 56-44 to 58-42. A three-way preferred premier question has Peter Malinauskas up five to 46%, One Nation’s Cory Bernardi steady on 20% and Liberal leader Ashton Hurn reduced to third, down three to 17%.

Malinauskas’s ratings are 44% positive (up one), 37% neutral (up one) and 19% negative (down two); Hurn’s are 22% positive (up one), 54% neutral (down one) and 24% negative (steady); and Bernardi’s are 20% positive (steady), 42% neutral (up three) and 38% negative (down three). The poll was conducted August 5 to 26 from a sample of 1012. Demographic details will be available on the full report in due course on the pollster’s website.

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