Mid-week miscellany: election timing, Essential and Morgan polls (open thread)

Fevered speculation about the timing of an increasingly imminent federal election, plus two more polls showing little change.

Yesterday’s interest rates cut has put election timing speculation into sharper focus, but the most widely touted option all along has been April 12, the earliest date that avoids overlap with the campaign for the Western Australian election on March 8. Labor MPs cited by The Australian today were “unanimously against a March budget, given the deficits it would forecast”, which is to say they would favour the three week window from March 29 to April 12 over an election on the other side of Easter in May. The first of these dates is rated a “small possibility”, and would help Labor prosecute the case that a corner has been turned on interest rates, which would be complicated in the very likely event that rates are kept on hold at the Reserve Bank’s next meeting on April 1. However, Labor sources cited by David Crowe of Nine Newspapers “play down the idea of an election being called this weekend”, as March 29 would require. Counting against April 12 is its being the date of Passover, sensitivity towards Jewish concerns being a priority at the moment. No one seems especially discouraged that it would land in the middle of school holidays in Victoria and Queensland.

The latest on the polling front:

• The fortnightly Essential Research poll has Labor steady on 30%, the Coalition down one to 35%, the Greens steady on 12% and One Nation up one to 9%, with a steady 4% undecided. The 2PP+ measure has both Labor and the Coalition on 48%, after the Coalition led 49-47 last time. Monthly leadership ratings have Anthony Albanese down two on approval after an unusually strong result last time to 43%, and up three on disapproval to 48%. Peter Dutton is down one on approval to 41% and up two on disapproval to 45%. The monthly “national mood” question likewise erases an anomalous improvement last time, with right direction down seven points to 31% and wrong track up five to 51%, both results being identical to the December survey. A quite of questions on “awareness of Labor’s achievements” records high awareness of $300 energy bill rebates (77% aware, 23% unaware) and TAFE and HECS debt cuts (66% and 34%), but relatively low awareness of consecutive budget surpluses (46% and 54%). The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1146.

• The weekly Roy Morgan poll has the Coalition with an unchanged two-party lead of 51.5-48.5 based on respondent-allocated preferences, and a narrowing from 51.5-48.5 to 51-49 going off 2022 election preference flows. The primary votes are Labor 28% (down one), Coalition 39.5% (down one), Greens 12.5% (up one-and-a-half) and One Nation 5.5% (up one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1666.

The Australian yesterday has a supplementary result from Monday’s Newspoll finding 25% of the view that inflation would be higher than it is now if Peter Dutton and the Coalition were in government, 24% lower and 31% about the same.

Federal polls: Newspoll, YouGov MRP, RedBridge-Accent marginal seat polling (open thread)

Three new polls collectively add to an impression of a Coalition with its nose in front.

A big day for federal opinion polling, with at least the possibility of more to come:

• The regular Newspoll from The Australian finds the Coalition leading 51-49, unchanged on three weeks ago, from primary votes of Labor 31% (steady), Coalition 38% (down one), Greens 12% (steady) and One Nation 7% (undecided). Anthony Albanese is steady at 37% approval and up one on approval to 58%, while Peter Dutton is respectively up one to 41% and steady on 51%. No sign yet of a preferred prime minister result (UPDATE: Albanese’s lead widens 44-41 to 45-40). The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1244.

• YouGov has the first of what it promises will be regular multi-level regression and post-stratification polling, a formidable effort compiled from 40,689 interviews conducted between January 22 and February 12. This produces estimates for all 150 electorates based on their demography, which you can learn more about on the YouGov site. Its median projection is 73 seats for the Coalition, 66 for Labor, eight for independents and one each for the Greens, Katter’s Australian Party and the Centre Alliance. For all the talk of Victoria, it suggests Labor’s biggest headache is New South Wales, where it trails in Bennelong, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore, Hunter, Macquarie, Paterson, Robertson, Shortland and Werriwa. A summary list names Labor’s other projected losses as Aston, Chisholm and McEwen in Victoria, Bullwinkel and Tangney in Western Australia, and Lyons in Tasmania, though there may be more to it than that because the full data set also finds the Liberals marginally favoured in Boothby in South Australia. With the caveat that MRP has a better record with standard two-party contests than with minor parties and independents, Labor is favoured in all three of the Greens-held seats in Brisbane (even historically conservative Ryan) and to recover Fowler from Dai Le, while the teal incumbents are reckoned to be “safe”. In terms of national voting intention, the Coalition leads 51.1-48.9 on two party preferred from primary votes of Labor 29.1%, Coalition 37.4%, Greens 12.7% and One Nation 9.1%. An excellent results display allows you to bring up each electorate’s results individually and download a full data set.

• The News Corp papers have the first instalment of a promised “tracking poll” series by RedBridge Group and Accent Research targeting a selected sample of 20 marginal seats, chosen to reflect a balance across states, city and country and Labor-held and Coalition-held. The poll finds the Coalition with a two party lead across the seats of 52-48, compared with a 51-49 lead for Labor across the seats in question in 2022. The primary votes are Labor 33%, Coalition 43% and Greens 12% – by my reckoning, the combined result in these seats in 2022 was Labor 33.9%, Coalition 38.3% and Greens 11.1%. As with the recent conventional RedBridge Group federal poll, Coalition voters were more firm (61% solid, 31% soft) than Labor voters (45% and 41%) in their voting intention. The poll was conducted February 4 to 11 from a sample of 1002. The series will proceed on a fortnightly basis until the election is called and a weekly basis thereafter.

And a big week on the electoral law front:

• The government’s campaign finance legislation passed in the Senate on Wednesday after it won Coalition support by increased the proposed cap on donations from $20,000 to $50,000 and reducing the proposed cut in the threshold on public disclosure of donations, currently at $16,900, to $5000 rather than $1000. Teal independents remain aggrieved that they will be limited to spending $800,000 on their individual campaigns, whereas the parties will be able to supplement their locally directed efforts with their nationally targeted advertising, and say they will seek to reverse the changes if they gain the balance of power at the next election.

• Ronald Mizen of the Financial Review reports the Cormack Foundation, which manages about $125 million in Victorian Liberal Party assets, may have broken the rules in making a $500,000 donation to right-wing campaign group Advance Australia without the knowledge of the party. In common with Labor’s similar Services & Holdings entity, the Cormack Foundation is exempt from the state’s $5000 donations cap only if operated for the “sole” or “principal” benefit of the relevant party, and a similar provision applies in the legislation passed in federal parliament last week. Chip Le Grand of The Age reported in December that a group of unsuccessful independents were preparing a High Court challenge against the exemption in Victoria.

• The High Court this week rejected Clive Palmer’s attempt to have a law preventing deregistered parties from re-registering before another election is held declared unconstitutional. His United Australia Party voluntarily deregistered after the 2022 election, citing administrative reasons. The provision was intended to prevent newly deregistered parties having their names appropriate by newcomers, and did not envision an existing party behaving as Palmer’s has done, for which electoral law expect Graeme Orr says was likely motivated to avoid having to make financial disclosures. The ruling did not discourage Palmer from cranking up his customary pre-election advertising onslaught this week.

German election minus eight days

Polls remain bleak for the left shortly before the February 23 election. Also covered: the Canadian Liberal leadership contest, federal election polls and provincial elections.

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.

I covered the February 23 German federal election in late December and late January. To qualify for a proportional allocation of the 630 seats, parties must either win at least 5% of the national “party” vote, or win at least three single-member electorates, which are elected by first past the post,

Polls give the conservative CDU/CSU about 30%, the far-right AfD 20%, the centre-left SPD 15%, the Greens 13%, the Left 6%, the economically left but socially conservative BSW 4.5% and the pro-business FDP 4%. In the last few weeks, there has been some movement to the Left and against BSW, so the Left is likely to clear the 5% threshold, while BSW may fall short.

The SPD, Greens and FDP had formed a coalition government after the September 2021 election, but this coalition broke down in early November, leading to this election being held seven months early. The CDU/CSU has said it won’t form a government with the AfD, but they may need both the SPD and Greens to form a government without the AfD.

Canadian Liberal leadership and federal polls

A new leader of the governing centre-left Liberals to replace Justin Trudeau will be elected on March 9. Preferential voting is used, with each of Canada’s electorates having 100 points and those points assigned in proportion to votes in that electorate. The overwhelming favourite to be next Liberal leader and PM is former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney. Carney has surged from 27% among Liberal supporters in the first Léger poll on January 13 to 57% on January 25 and 68% on February 10.

All Canadian general elections use FPTP. The federal election is due by October, though it could be held earlier if the Liberals are defeated after parliament resumes on March 23. The CBC Poll Tracker was last updated Monday, and it has the Conservatives leading the Liberals by 42.4-25.5 with 16.4% for the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP), 8.1% for the separatist left-wing Quebec Bloc (BQ) (33.3% in Quebec), 4.1% for the Greens and 2.8% for the far-right People’s.

On these vote shares, the Conservatives are expected to win 205 of the 343 seats, the Liberals 79, the BQ 39 and NDP 18, with the Conservatives well above the 172 needed for a majority. In the last month, the Liberals’ vote share has increased from a low of 20.1% and the Conservatives have dropped from a high of 44.8%.

Conservative landslide likely at Ontario election

Ontario is Canada’s most populous province. Conservative Premier Doug Ford called an election for February 27, about 15 months early. The Writ’s current Ontario forecast is for the Conservatives to win 97 of the 124 seats on 44.6% of votes, the Liberals 14 seats on 28.3%, the NDP ten seats on 17.9% and the Greens two seats on 6.2%. This would be the Conservatives’ third successive term.

At the November 26 Nova Scotia election, the incumbent Conservatives were easily re-elected with 43 of the 55 seats (up 12 since 2021). The NDP won nine seats (up three) and the Liberals two (down 15). Vote shares were 52.5% Conservatives (up 14.1%), 22.2% NDP (up 1.2%) and 22.7% Liberals (down 14.0%).

US, UK and Ireland

In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, Donald Trump’s net approval in US national polls is currently +3.4, with 49.0% approving and 45.7% disapproving. His net approval has dropped from a peak of +8.2 at the start of his term.

The far-right Reform has surged into a tie for the lead with Labour in UK national polls with the Conservatives further behind. The Find Out Now poll, which has a pro-Reform lean, has Reform six points ahead of Labour in its latest poll. Keir Starmer’s net favourability is -33 or worse in most recent polls.

At the November 29 Irish election, the two main conservative parties (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) won a combined 86 of the 174 seats, two short of a majority. On January 15, a coalition government was agreed between these two parties and nine of the 16 independents. Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin was elected Taoiseach (PM) after winning a parliamentary vote on January 23.

Western Australian election minus three weeks

The publication of candidates provides something to talk about after an uneventful first week of the campaign.

Ballot paper draws have been conducted for the Western Australian election and candidates published on the Electoral Commission website, though they will not be in a format I can make use of until later today (UPDATE: Now updated). I will then incorporate full candidate lists into my election guide. Antony Green crunches some numbers on his blog and finds nominations slightly down on 2021 for the lower house and dramatically down for the upper house, reflecting the abolition of the former system of six regions and the group voting tickets that encouraged preference harvesting.

There are twelve registered parties, each with an upper house ticket, and Antony Green has been able to surmise that the ten independent candidates include five grouped on to a ticket and another five in the ungrouped column. The formerly is presumably the grouping that brings together three cross-benchers incumbents who have broken with their original parties: Louise Kingston, formerly of the Nationals; Sophia Moermond of Legalise Cannabis; and the member formerly known as Ben Dawkins, who ran for Labor in 2021 but has been an independent since filling a mid-term vacancy, except when he had a spell with One Nation. Dawkins has changed his name to Austin Trump, allowing him to trade under the name “Aussie Trump”. There was a period when this grouping seemed to have split, Kingston promoting her wares through an “Independents for WA” website while Moermond and Dawkins-Trump made common cause as Vote Independent WA. Evidently the rift has healed though, with the former website now offline and Kingston back on the original site.

The names on the registered parties list are all familiar, with one conspicuous exception: Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies!, which is how the Democratic Labor Party has chosen to brand itself following federally inspired laws prohibiting minor parties from having Labor or Liberal in their names. The West Australian reports the other upper house cross-bencher, Wilson Tucker, was in talks to run with the Democratic Labour Party when it was still called that, but broke ranks when he learned of the new name and will now retire from politics. Tucker was famously elected to a Mining and Pastoral region seat for the Daylight Saving Party in 2021 off 98 first preference votes and a tight network of preference harvesting. Tucker became an independent when the party was deregistered in February 2023. Shooters Fishers and Farmers seem to have chosen to be identified on ballot papers, rather unwisely in my view, as SFFPWA.

This is the first election at which how-to-vote cards have been registered and published on the Electoral Commission website, a helpful practice from the perspective of the election analyst. For the upper house, Labor is recommending a second preference to the Greens, a third to Legalise Cannabis and a fourth to Animal Justice in city seats, but a second to Legalise Cannabis and third to the Greens in the country – prompting not unreasonable accusations from the Liberals that it is seeking to obscure its support for Animal Justice in areas sensitive to live sheep exports. The Liberals are recommending six numbers be marked, successively for the Nationals, Australian Christians, One Nation, Shooters and Libertarians. Labor are favouring the Liberals over the Nationals in three-cornered contests in Mid-West, Warren-Blackwood, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie. Neither side seems keen on independents: Labor has competitive contenders in Geraldton and Kalgoorlie behind both the Liberals and the Nationals, and the Liberals are favouring Labor incumbent Simone McGurk over teal independent Kate Hulett in Fremantle.

In other news, The Sunday Times reported this week that the Liberals are either managing expectations or taking a distinctly bearish view of proceedings, expecting to emerge from the election with between six and twelve seats. This suggests a swing of between 7% and 13%, as compared with the 14% indicated by the Newspoll last week. For Labor’s part, Dylan Caporn of The West Australian reports a source saying Albany will be “hard to win”, being “the only electorate in WA where the ban on live sheep exports is putting us at risk”.

Federal polls: RedBridge Group and Roy Morgan (open thread)

Two new federal polls show the Coalition in front, one suggesting the swing is strongest in the outer suburbs.

Two new federal polls:

• RedBridge Group has its first federal poll since November (not counting its MRP poll with Accent Research), which has the Coalition leading 51.5-48.5 on two-party preferred compared with a 50-50 result last time. On the primary vote, Labor is down three to 31%, the Coalition up two to 40% and the Greens steady on 11%. The poll also finds Coalition supporters are more firm in their voting intention (61% solid versus 34% soft) than Labor voters (51% solid and 39% soft). Attendant media coverage is making much of regional breakdowns showing a 9% swing against Labor in the outer suburbs, compared with 5% in the inner and middle suburbs, essential no change in provincial cities, and a 3% swing in Labor’s favour in rural areas, although the error margins on these individuals breakdowns are around 6%. The poll was conducted last Monday to Friday from a sample of 1013.

• The regular weekly Roy Morgan poll likewise records the Coalition with a 51.5-48.5 lead on both the respondent-allocated and previous election flow measures of two-party preferred (which were respectively 50-50 and 50.5-49.5 in Labor’s favour last time). The primary votes are Labor 29% (down one), Coalition 40.5% (up two), Greens 11% (down half) and One Nation 4% (down one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1688.

Prahran and Werribee by-elections live

Live and pre-match commentary on the Victorian state by-elections. for Werribee and Prahran.


Click here for full display of Prahran by-election results

Click here for full display of Werribee by-election results

Live commentary

Saturday
I believe the counts are now complete, with various loose ends being tied up in both seats. These cut six votes from the Liberal lead in Prahran, which ends at 16,352 to 15,363, a margin of 989.

Thursday

7pm. New postals now added for Prahran, breaking 773-732 in favour of Liberal, increasing their lead from 954 to 995.

4pm. Finally an update from Werribee (though not Prahran), and my system is calling it for Labor. This is due to the addition of 2310 postal votes, of which the formal ones have broken 1191-1039 to Labor, in keeping with the tendency for Labor to do better on late-arriving postal votes. Rechecked totals have been added on the primary vote count, but the VEC does not do rechecking on the TCP count. These will make a few dozen votes’ difference in favour of the Liberals, but not nearly enough to disturb a published Labor lead of 593 votes, out from 441 on election night, with at most 1500 still to come.

Tuesday night

It seems we won’t be seeing further updates to the count until later in the week.

Monday night

It is apparently the case that a check count of the primary vote at least commenced today, but no updates have appeared for the published results. The uncovering of errors might tilt the balance one way or another in Werribee, but otherwise the matter will be decided by perhaps 3000 postal votes that will trickle in over the coming week.

Saturday night

2.00am. Having updated the system with estimates of the number of outstanding votes (which make a generous guess of postals in the absence of any hard data I can find), my system is calling Prahran for the Liberals and giving Labor an 84.5% chance in Werribee. In Werribee, the Liberals will need to improve on the 53-47 break in the favour on postals counted so far to close a gap of 441 votes, which is certainly possible if there are indeed enough votes outstanding; in Prahran, postals can only extend a current Liberal lead of 954 votes.

1.00am. The remaining pre-poll centre in Werribee finally came through with its TCP result, producing what one assumes is the final result for the night: Labor 20,132, Liberal 19,691.

12.13am. Correction: one of the two Werribee pre-poll centres hasn’t reported its TCP result.

11.34pm. A good night for the Liberals got better with the addition of the second batch of Werribee pre-polls, which sliced Labor’s lead on the raw vote from 3.0% to 0.6% — and my projection is the same. So the question now is whether the Liberals can wear a 446 vote deficit on postals, making it very much too close to call.

11.25pm. I’m unclear if we’re actually going to see the outstanding pre-poll TCP count added for Werribee this evening. My system’s earlier call of the seat for Labor, which I was very uncomfortable about, turns out to be based on an underestimate in the number of outstanding votes, and has been retracted now that I’ve added new (and very rough) estimates.

10.50pm. A second batch of pre-polls have been added for Werribee on the primary vote and my system is calling it for Labor again, but I’m not at all confident about that. What we have is a huge mismatch between the pre-poll primary vote count (21854 formal votes) and the TCP count (50 formal votes), which means more than half the projection is based on an estimate of preference flows that may prove awry.

10.19pm. A second batch of pre-poll TCPs slightly improved the Greens’ position in Prahran, though they’re still behind. That may be it for the evening — the Greens are nearly 1000 vote behind, which isn’t the kind of lead that normally gets chased down in late counting, particularly by the Greens in a situation where there won’t be absent votes. Nothing substantial in the latest Werribee update, apart from the last remaining booth TCP result. Now that it’s clear pre-polls are indeed being reported in batches, I more strongly suspect that we haven’t seen the last of the count for the evening in Werribee.

10.04pm. A batch of pre-polls — fewer than I expected, so there may be more to come — have been added on the primary vote for Werribee. They are not great for Labor — around 3% worse on two-party terms than the election day votes. That’s relative to the total result of pre-polls last time though, and it may be that we’re getting one batch from one part of the electorate and a later batch will be different, which my system isn’t built to factor it. The Liberals have pulled further ahead in Prahran, again because of a TCP result — this time for pre-polls — where they did better on preferences than on election day votes. It looks like the ABC has turned off booth-matching, but whether off projected or raw results, it looks much the same, namely bleak for the Greens.

10.02pm. It turns out to have been the postal TCP count: the Greens did well enough relatively speaking on the primary vote and then did very badly on the preference flow, resulting in a 17.9% LIB swing. They may at least hope that later arriving postals will behave differently.

9.51pm. I remain unsure as to what cause the Liberal landslip in Prahran — the latest update has moderated it slightly, but the Liberals are still ahead.

9.40pm. Things have suddenly slipped dramatically in the Liberals’ favour in Prahran: both my system and the ABC’s went from having the Greens ahead to Liberal ahead. I’ve arbitrarily widened my error margins in both seats. To repeat yet again, Labor’s narrow lead in Werribee could very easily be wiped out by pre-polls.

9.26pm. If you’re enjoying the coverage, please consider a donation through the “become a supporter” buttons at the top of the page and the bottom of the post.

9.20pm. Labor has strengthened a little in Werribee on my projection with the latest update, but not so much as to change my basic outlook that everything depends on a looming dump of pre-polls, which renders the 90% or so Labor win probability excessive. I will look at tweaking my model so it’s more cautious until substantial numbers of pre-polls are added. That’s not an issue in Prahran, where the pre-polls have been reported: lots of new TCP numbers in the latest update do not change by projection of an 8% to 9% swing from Greens to Liberal, which is about 4% below what the Liberals need.

9.05pm. Not sure exactly why, but the latest update from Werribee not good for Labor: their win probability now wound back to 76.7%. Still no pre-polls. Whereas there is a big whack of pre-polls in Prahran, accounting for nearly half the vote counted, and they have hardly behaved differently from election day votes, suggesting the Greens are indeed looking good.

8.58pm. There were 15,895 pre-polls added late on the night of the Mulgrave by-election count, which is presumably a rough pointer of what to expect here — more so though in Werribee’s case than Prahran’s.

8.45pm. I’ve forced through real world preference flows to my Werribee projection, and a little to my surprise, it’s calling the seat for Labor — which would be because it goes off lower error margins when it stops using preference flows. But I would want to see some serious pre-poll numbers first.

8.39pm. No new results in the latest update for Prahran, but we’ve got a second TCP from Werribee plus most of the primary vote booth results. That’s still not enough TCP for my system to switch out of using my preference estimates. Based on how Paul Hopper’s preferences flowed in 2022, I’ve tweaked his flow slightly in favour of the Liberals, and should probably tweak them a bit more. If my system was going off the preference flows indicated by the TCP count, Labor would be projected with a 1.4% lead. As it stands, my system says 2.6%. I suspect the former will be nearer the mark.

8.20pm. A huge infusion of primary votes in Prahran, six out of nine booths in all, and my system is all but calling it for the Greens. But: there’s still practically no TCP count, and if I’m wrong about preferences, I may be overestimating them. Count progress similar in Werribee: lot of primary votes now, very few TCPs, speculative preference estimates looming large in a projection that has tightened up.

8.14pm. A lot in Prahran depends on preferences for Tony Lupton, who I’m projecting at a bit over 10%. His how-to-vote card has the Liberals ahead of the Greens, but I’m punting on a lot of people not following it and splitting his vote 50-50. We’ll have a better idea how right I am about that when we see some substantial TCP numbers at the count, at which point my system will drop pre-determined preference estimates and calculate their actual flow.

8.05pm. First booth in from Prahran, plus a tiny parcel of pre-poll votes. I think the latter are distorting my projections: they show it as close, but the booth is quite large and suggests a Liberal swing of only about 3%. Four booths in now from Werribee, and my system is now leaning to Labor, suggesting an insufficient Liberal swing of 7.1%. However, I’m projecting neither major party to clear 30% on the primary vote, so I can’t be ruled out that a minor candidate can sneak through the middle. Independent Paul Hopper best placed, but my feeling is that the number of Greens and Victorian Socialists votes going straight to Labor will make it hard for him.

7.50pm. Relief for Labor as the second booth in from Werribee, Riverbend, swings a lot more gently than the first. Labor’s primary vote has plunged, but a remarkable share of it has gone to Victorian Socialists. I’m projecting a very slight Labor lead, but that leans heavily on preference estimates. Still nothing from Werribee.

7.35pm. The latest update brings the TCP result from Little River, which the Liberals won 177-117 after losing 156-122 last time.

7.18pm. Nothing new in the regular 15 minute update. When I referred earlier to “the absence of small rural booths”, I guess I should have said “except Little River”.

7.03pm. The first booth in from Werribee is Little River, with what I record to be a 13.5% two-party swing, which would be enough for the Liberals to win. Notes of caution though: only 294 votes, and a booth uncharacteristic of the electorate.

6.16pm. No surprise that the latest results update brings no figures, but the time stamps on my results pages have successfully updated, which is reassuring.

6pm. Polls have closed. History suggests the Victorian Electoral Commission will update the results feed at precise 15 minute intervals. Given the huge fields of candidates in both seats, and the absence of small rural booths, there could be quite a wait — in similar circumstances at the Mulgrave by-election, the first update with actual results was at 7:30pm.

Preview

Today is the day of Victoria’s eagerly awaited Werribee and Prahran by-elections, which between them offer an opportunity to gauge whether Labor is doing quite as badly in the outer suburban mortgage belt as recent polls have suggested, and how the Greens are holding up in their inner Melbourne heartland after a disappointing result at the Queensland election in October. As is hopefully apparent immediately above, this site will be running live results and projections using its innovative three-candidate prediction model, though as will be explained below, these will very likely be two-candidate contests.

As is so often the case in Victoria these days, both have attracted bloated fields of candidates, but Werribee appears a straightforward two-horse race that will be defined by the precise scale of the inevitable swing from Labor to Liberal. The former is defending a margin of 10.5%, which is less than the swing indicated by the remarkable recent poll result from Resolve Strategic. Ronald Mizen of the Financial Review reported last week that “internal Labor polling suggests it could be as close as 48-52 in favour of the government”, which would come as a substantial relief to it if borne out. For their part, the Liberals are managing expectations, with Chip Le Grand of The Age relating a view that the party missed an opportunity to engage the seat’s substantial Indian population by preselecting 63-year-old real estate agent Steve Murphy. Liberal sources cited in the Financial Review hopefully offered if if Murphy can manage a 5% swing, “the seat could be within reach next year” — a notion rightly debunked by Kevin Bonham.

I’m not aware of any hard intelligence of what’s likely to transpire in Prahran, where the Greens are defending a formidable 12.3% margin against the Liberals in a contest forfeited by Labor. A fair bit has been made of the fact that the seat’s last Labor member, Tony Lupton, who held it from 2002 to 2010, is running as a candidate and directing preferences to the Liberals ahead of the “toxic” Greens. While Lupton’s name recognition is unlikely to amount to much fourteen years after he ceased to represent a rapidly changing electorate, he can hardly fail to gain at least some traction in his appeal to homeless Labor voters. The extent to which they follow his how-to-vote card is another matter.

Newspoll: 56-44 to Labor in Western Australia

The first poll of the Western Australian election campaign suggests a semi-respectable result for the Liberals, without leaving much doubt as to the likely result.

The Australian celebrates the issue of the writs for the March 8 Western Australian state election (which you can learn about in detail through the Poll Bludger election guide) with a fresh result from Newspoll. This suggests Labor is headed for what would normally be reckoned a handsome win, but with a swing at the high end of what polling over the last year or so has indicated.

Labor is credited with a 56-44 lead on two-party preferred, compared with the extraordinary 70-30 result in 2021, from primary votes of Labor 42% (59.9% in 2021), Liberal 32% (21.3%), Nationals 3% (4.0%), Greens 12% (6.9%) and One Nation 4% (1.3%). Roger Cook’s personal ratings, while no match for Mark McGowan’s, are very strong by normal standards, with approval at 55% and disapproval at 37%, while Liberal leader Libby Mettam records 39% approval and 41% disapproval. Cook leads Mettam 54-34 as preferred premier.

The poll was conducted last Wednesday to Tuesday from a sample of 1039.

Federal polls: Essential Research, DemosAU, Roy Morgan (open thread)

Three new federal polls, one recording a slight improvement for Labor, the other two showing little change.

This fortnight’s Essential Research poll has Labor steady at 30%, the Coalition down one to 36%, the Greens steady at 12%, One Nation up one to 8%, and undecided down one to 4%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has the Coalition up a point to 49% and Labor steady on 47%, with undecided steady at 4%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1150.

Also featured is the Essential poll was an occasional suite of questions on leadership attributes, finding Anthony Albanese scoring low on positive qualities and high on negative ones, though respondents are less likely to view him as not handling pressure well than changing his opinion or being out of touch, and not at all prone to seeing him as aggressive. Peter Dutton gets favourable scores on being decisive and handling pressure, somewhat unfavourable ones for the others, and interestingly manages to break even on aggression. Charts are included showing how the leaders’ ratings have tracked historically, showing drops across the board for Albanese between surveys in March 2023 and February 2024.

The poll finds 37% support for the Coalition’s proposed tax discounts for small businesses to spend on meals and entertainment with 31% opposed. Questions on diversity, equity and inclusion find 44% supporting and 26% opposing the proposition that “we need to proactively address the historical injustices that continue to have an impact today”, but 47% agreeing and only 14% disagreeing that “programs that elevate particular minority groups, such as targets and quotas, deliver worse outcomes”. Forty-three per cent felt the government was not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism, compared with 30% for enough and 9% for too much, and there was an exactly even split on whether majority or minority governments are preferable.

Also out this week is the second federal poll from DemosAU, with results similar to the first in November: an unchanged 50-50 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Labor 33% (up one), Coalition 38% (steady), Greens 12% (steady) and One Nation 7% (steady). The poll was conducted Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1238.

The weekly Roy Morgan poll has a tie on the headline respondent-allocated two-party preferred figure, after the Coalition led 52-48 last time. The primary votes are Labor 30% (up half), Coalition 38.5% (down two), Greens 11.5% (steady) and One Nation 5.5% (down half). The two-party measure based on 2022 election flows has Labor leading 50.5-49.5, after trailing 51-49 last time, which I believe is Labor’s first two-party lead in a national poll since the Roy Morgan poll of November 18-24. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1694.

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