Secret Harbour by-election: August 29

The resurgent One Nation gets its first chance to flex its new muscles at a by-election for an historically safe Labor state seat in Western Australia.

I have a guide up for the Western Australian state by-election for Secret Harbour, where events have moved quickly since Paul Papalia announced his retirement on July 6. The by-election will be held on August 29, and candidates are already in place following the ballot paper draw on Tuesday. A remarkable field of 16 candidates has emerged, with six independents joining candidates from 10 of the state’s 13 registered parties. This is unlikely to dent perceptions of the by-election as a contest between Labor and One Nation, in an area whose low ethnic diversity and large trades workforce reflects that of the South Australian seats where One Nation emerged as a threat to Labor in March.

Labor’s candidate is Georgia Tree, a former staffer to local federal MP Madeleine King and government relations employee at Woodside. One Nation has endorsed Luke Herdegen, a gymnasium franchisee and former national weightlifting champion. Basil Zempilas’s contention that any defeat for Labor would a win for the Liberals said much about his party’s prospects, though it has a seemingly strong candidate in Ryan Robertson, a Rockingham councillor, real estate agent and former submariner, the latter a particular asset in a seat located near the HMAS Stirling naval base.

Non-federal polls: Resolve Strategic NSW and DemosAU ACT

New polls find the One Nation disruption at full force in New South Wales, but largely only a problem for the Liberals in the ACT.

I am late in noticing the Resolve Strategic poll of New South Wales state voting intention for Nine Newspapers, which follows the pollster’s usual pattern in combining responses from the state from the last two monthly national polls. One Nation is up three points to a new peak of 25%, while Labor returns to 29% after a three-point spike in March-April, the Coalition drops three to a new low of 23%, and the Greens gain one to 11%. Chris Minns’ lead over Kellie Sloane as preferred premier shifts from 38-18 to 36-16. The sample for the poll was 1100.

Also out this week was a rare Australian Capital Territory poll conducted by DemosAU, with results providing little indication that Labor’s 26-year hegemony is about to come to an end. Labor was on 32%, compared with 34.1% at the October 2024 election; the Liberals were on 21%, compared with 33.5%; and the Greens were on 11%, compared with 12.2%. One Nation, who did not contest the 2024 election, were on 14%. A generic independent category accounted for 19%, with 3% designated as others. When non-major party voters were asked who they were favoured to form government, 42% of the independent voters opted for Labor compared with only 18% for the Liberals. Chief Minister Andrew Barr was viewed positively by 33%, neutrally by 29% and negatively by 38%, while Liberal leader Mark Parton respectively scored 26%, 48% and 28%. The poll was conducted July 2 to 16 from a sample of 979.

Morgan: Labor 27.5, Coalition 23, One Nation 22.5 (open thread)

Roy Morgan maintains the mixed picture of recent polling for One Nation, reversing their strong gain of a week ago.

The weekly federal poll from Roy Morgan has maintained its recent volatile form with respect to One Nation, who return to the 22.5% they recorded a fortnight ago before spiking to 26% last week. The beneficiaries on this occasion are the Coalition, up three to 23%, while Labor is steady on 27.5% and the Greens are up a point-and-a-half to 14%. Labor’s respondent-allocated two-party lead over One Nation is out from 52.5-47.5 to 55-45. Against the Coalition, Labor’s lead is out from 54-46 to 56-44 on respondent-allocated preferences and from 52.5-47.5 to 53-47 on previous election preferences. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1679.

Federal redistributions: South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT

Radical boundary changes in Tasmania, minor ones in South Australia and the ACT, and limited political implications all round.

Assuming the government serves out a more-or-less full term, the next federal election will be held under new boundaries in three states and one territory, the exceptions being New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Queensland’s redistribution has been held up pending official confirmation that its population growth will not entitle it to a new seat, but the other three redistribution processes have reached their fruition over the past fortnight, barring the delicate question of nomenclature.

The finalised boundaries for South Australia cancel two of the changes from the proposed boundaries published in March, leaving only the transfer of 10% of Spence’s voters to its northern Adelaide neighbour Makin, and small transfers from Mayo to Boothby and Barker. The former have little impact on the substantial Labor margins in both of the affected seats, while the latter adds half-a-point to Rebekha Sharkie’s margin in Mayo. Beyond that, the regional and remote seat of Grey, which bears the name of a colonial governor, will become O’Donoghue, in honour of the late Aboriginal leader Lowitja O’Donoghue.

Tasmania’s redistribution is as radical as South Australia’s is conservative, and has an extra layer of interest in also providing the boundaries for state elections (votes shares at state level have been calculated by Ben Raue). Where formerly Clark accommodated Hobart’s core and Franklin its south and east, the redistribution has made a hard boundary out of the Derwent River, causing Franklin — which has the proposed new name of Tongerlongeter (subject of a critical opinion piece by Tony Abbott in The Weekend Australian) — to lose the suburbs and periphery south of Hobart to Clark. Clark’s gains are balanced by transferring northern Hobart to what had previously been the largely rural electorate of Lyons, while Franklin extends up the state’s east coast as far as Bicheno, taking a large chunk of what had formerly been Lyons.

For all their scope, the impact of the changes appears remarkably modest in electoral terms. None of the changes I estimate in the Labor-versus-Liberal two-party margins reach a full percentage point, and One Nation, who would appear to be a competitive prospect in the state’s regional seats, has had minimal change to its primary vote shares. Losing a large chunk of the territory he has serviced since 2010 will not help Andrew Wilkie, but he likely remains safe: the transfer to Lyons (which accounts for 43% of the enrolment) is not his strongest territory, and future state independent Peter George scored 22.9% in the area being gained from Franklin, much of which would doubtless transfer to Wilkie.

The minimal changes arising from the Australian Capital Territory redistribution were covered in a post a fortnight ago. My own calculations for new margins and party vote shares are accounted for in very great detail in spreadsheets for South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. Similar exercises can be found on the sites of Antony Green and Ben Raue.

Newspoll: Labor 30, One Nation 30, Coalition 19 (open thread)

Newspoll bucks recent trends in finding One Nation as strong as ever, with Labor failing to sustain a gain from last time.

The Australian reports the latest Newspoll has Labor losing a three-point gain it made in the last poll three weeks ago, putting them back at 30%. The uneven polling picture for One Nation is maintained with a one-point increase to 30%, only one point shy of its record result from the poll before last. The Coalition is up two to 19% after descending from 21% in April to 17% late last month. The Greens are down a point to 12%, having bumped around in a range from 11% to 13% since the start of the term.

Anthony Albanese is on 39% approval and 57% disapproval while Angus Taylor is on 30% and 51%, which in both cases are down one on approval and steady on disapproval. Albanese’s lead over Angus Taylor on preferred prime minister narrows from 47-36 to 44-36, and a three-way version of the question has Albanese down three to 46%, Taylor up two to 22%, and Pauline Hanson up one to 32%. Hanson is up a point on approval to 47% and down two on disapproval to 47%. The poll was conducted Monday to Thursday from a sample of 1238.

Andy Burnham to be next UK PM

This article also covers upcoming UK by-elections for Greater Manchester mayor and Clacton and polls for the US midterm 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.

To qualify for a membership ballot, a candidate for UK Labour leadership required 20% of all Labour MPs (81 MPs in the current parliament). Andy Burnham is the only candidate to meet this threshold, winning endorsements from 379 of the 403 Labour MPs (94%). He will be elected unopposed to replace Keir Starmer as Labour leader and PM and will become PM on Monday.

The Election Maps UK aggregate of national polls has the populist right Reform leading with 26.0%, followed by Labour at 20.8%, the Conservatives 19.8%, the Greens 13.0%, the Liberal Democrats 12.1% and the populist right Restore 3.2%. There has been movement since late May against Reform and towards Labour and the Conservatives. Seat projections give Reform 250 of the 650 seats, but they would reach a majority with the support of the Conservatives (87 seats).

The Greater Manchester mayoral by-election to replace Burnham after his June 18 election to the UK parliament will occur on July 30. It will be the biggest UK by-election. This by-election will be held using the “supplementary vote” system, where voters get two preferences. Mayoral elections prior to 2024 used this system, but the Conservatives regressed to first-past-the-post for 2024-26 mayoral elections. Labour reverted to the supplementary vote.

In the 2024 mayoral election, Burnham won 63.4%, with the Conservatives a very distant second with 10.4%, followed by 7.6% for an independent, 7.5% Reform, 6.9% Greens and 4.2% Lib Dems. An early July Find Out Now poll gave Labour 38%, the Greens 22%, Reform 19%, Restore 9% and the Conservatives 8%. After preferences, Labour defeats the Greens 64-36 and Reform 66-34.

On July 7, Reform leader Nigel Farage announced he would resign as Member for Clacton and recontest Clacton at the ensuing August 13 by-election. No other well-known party will contest this by-election. It’s likely Farage’s main opponent will be joke candidate Count Binface. In 2024, Farage defeated the Conservatives in Clacton by 46.2-27.9 with 16.2% for Labour.

US updates

At November midterm elections, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 senators will be up for election. At the 2024 elections, Republicans won the House over Democrats by 220-215 and the Senate by 53-47.

Owing to Republican gerrymandering, Democrats need about a four-point popular vote margin to win the House. The two senators per state rule helps Republicans, and Democrats will need a double-digit popular vote margin to win the Senate on a uniform swing.

In Nate Silver’s aggregate of the generic ballot, Democrats lead Republicans by 48.0-41.9, a 6.1-point margin that is down from a peak of 7.1 points in late May. Donald Trump’s net approval has climbed from a low of -20.2 in late May to -17.0.

Democratic nominee Graham Platner withdrew from the Maine Senate contest last Friday after sexual assault allegations. Democrats have until July 27 to select a replacement candidate. Maine should be the easiest gain for Democrats as Kamala Harris defeated Trump there by 6.9 points in 2024.

Republicans currently control the House by 219-212 with four vacancies. Two Democrats qualified for the August 18 runoff in California 14 after a June 16 jungle primary. After the death of the Democratic incumbent in late April, a jungle primary for Georgia 13 will occur on July 28 with a runoff if needed on August 25. No special for the two other vacancies that occurred in April (one Democrat, one Republican) has yet been scheduled.

Other elections

The 56 Cypriot seats are elected by proportional representation in six multi-member electorates. At the May 24 election, the conservative DISY won 17 seats (steady since 2021), the communist AKEL 15 (steady), the populist right ELAM eight (up four) and the centrist DIKO eight (down one). The DISY retained government.

Malta has 13 five-member seats using proportional representation with preferences, with extra seats added to ensure overall proportionality. At the May 30 election, Labour defeated the conservative Nationalists by 42 seats to 37, winning its fourth successive term (44-35 to Labour in 2022). Malta retains a strong two-party system, with Labour defeating the Nationalists on vote shares by 51.8-44.7.

In final results of the June 7 Peruvian presidential runoff election, right-winger Fujimori defeated left-winger Sánchez by 50.13-49.87. This was Fujimori’s first win after three consecutive runoff losses.

Federal polls: YouGov, DemosAU and Roy Morgan (open thread)

Broadly similar voting intention numbers from three separate pollsters, though they have followed different paths to get there.

Three new federal polls produce a range of movements for the leading parties, partly but not entirely due to their different time scales (weekly for one poll, fortnightly for another, monthly for a third). The fortnightly Sky News Pulse poll by YouGov, which was an outlier last time in failing to show a drop for One Nation, comes good this time with a four-point drop to 26%, while Labor is down a point to 28%, the Coalition are up three to 20% and the Greens are down one to 12%. Respondent-allocated two-party preferred measures have Labor’s lead out from 54-46 to 56-44 against One Nation, and in from 54-46 to 53-47 against the Coalition. Pauline Hanson also takes a hit on preferred prime minister against Anthony Albanese, whose lead is out from 49-40 to 54-35. Albanese is up two on approval to 38% and down one on disapproval to 56%, while Angus Taylor is down three to 33% and up two to 49%, and Albanese’s lead over Taylor as preferred prime minister is out from 44-35 to 45-34. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to this Tuesday from a sample of 1468.

The monthly DemosAU poll for Capital Brief has Labor down one to 26%, One Nation down one to 29%, the Coalition up three to 21% and the Greens up one to 14%. Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings are down one for positive to 25%, up two for neutral to 27% and and down one for negative to 48%; Angus Taylor is up two on positive to 24%, down one for neutral to 49% and down one for negative to 27%; and Pauline Hanson is down three on positive to 34%, steady on 23% neutral and up three on negative to 43%. A three-way preferred prime minister question has Albanese steady on 35%, Taylor up three to 22% and Hanson down two to 26%. Head-to-head ratings, which weren’t included last time, have Albanese and Taylor tied at 38-all, and Albanese leading Hanson 42-37. The poll was conducted July 3 to 8 from a sample of 2694.

As with the weekend’s Resolve Strategic poll, respondents were queried about their views on a range of statements advanced by Pauline Hanson during her National Press Club speech, with distinctly less favourable results – the most obvious explanation being that Resolve Strategic’s question specifically identified the views with Hanson whereas DemosAU did not. Resolve had 33% in favour and 39% opposed on the question of whether Australia “should be monocultural, rather than multicultural”, while an all but identically worded proposition from DemosAU has 25% in favour and 51% opposed. Hanson’s proposal for the ABC had 31% in favour and 40% opposed from Resolve, while DemosAU respectively has it at 21% and 54%. Where Resolve had 32% in favour and 36% against the contention that “it should be easier for companies to sack people”, DemosAU had 32% in favour and 43% opposed to the seemingly more gently worded “employers should have more flexibility to dismiss workers”.

After recording a nine-point slump for One Nation over its two previous polls, the weekly Roy Morgan series has them bouncing back five-and-a-half points to 28%, with Labor down half a point to 27.5%, the Coalition down one-and-a-half to 20% and the Greens down one-and-a-half to 12.5%. Labor’s respondent-allocated two-party lead over One Nation has duly narrowed, from 56-44 to 52.5-47.5, and its leads over the Coalition have narrowed from 55-45 to 54-46 on respondent-allocated preferences and from 54-46 to 52.5-47.5 on previous election preferences. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1612.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 27, Coalition 27, One Nation 22 in Victoria

Polling continues to point to a three-way contest in Victoria, as the government finally prepares to abolish group voting tickets for the upper house.

Resolve Strategic is publishing monthly Victorian state poll results for The Age ahead of the election in November, padding out the sample in its regular national polling and inquiring about state as well as federal voting intention. The latest result finds Labor and the Coalition remaining tied on the primary vote, with both up a point by 27%, while One Nation are down two to 22% and the Greens are steady on 12%. Jess Wilson’s lead over Jacinta Allan on preferred premier shifts from 39-20 to 43-24. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1000.

There is also a report in the Herald Sun on a 6500 sample poll conducted for Trades Hall by RedBridge Group which has One Nation on 27%, Labor and the Coalition each on 26% and the Greens on 12%. The polling “includes low, median and high scenarios for seats likely to be obtained by each party, and Labor is understood to be able to scrape across the line with its number of seats in the mid-40s on a ‘high’ sensitivity scenario – but could fall into the 20s under the ‘low’ scenario”.

There was a major development over the weekend with reports the government will shortly legislate to abolish group voting tickets for the Legislative Council, which it has taken a confoundingly long time to get around to despite the urgings of a parliamentary committee inquiry in December. The reports are scarce on details, beyond that fact that the reforms follow other jurisdictions in allowing above-the-line voters to number multiple preferences, rather than voting for a single party and accepting its full nominated preference order. The existing system helped two parties win seats from less than 1% of the vote in 2018, and has recently encouraged a rash of registration applications by parties plainly devised with the intention of harvesting preferences. Antony Green noted a fortnight ago that the Victorian Electoral Commission has advised a bill would need to be passed at the next sitting of parliament later this month to take effect in time for the election.

UPDATE: Further results from the poll show 70% support for a royal commission into corruption in the building industry, which Jacinta Allan is resisting, with 6% opposed.

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