The new Ipsos poll for Fairfax has opened its account in interesting style, giving Labor a lead of 56-44 on two-party preferred. However, the primary votes aren’t quite as remarkable as that, perhaps excepting a result of 17% from the Greens – the Coalition is on 39% and Labor on 37%, which in both cases are within a point of the latest results from Galaxy, ReachTEL and Essential Research. The reason the two-party headline is so extraordinary is that it is from respondent-allocated preferences, which have had a way of leaning heavily towards Labor recently, in both federal and state polling. Ipsos’s calculated based on preference flows from the 2010 election is a much less remarkable 53-47.
Denis Napthine can also find comfort in his leads over Daniel Andrews on personal ratings. Napthine’s plus-nine net approval rating (approval 47%, disapproval 38%) compares with minus-five for Andrews (37% and 42%), and he leads 45-36 as preferred premier. The Age’s graphic has big arrows showing changes in the leaders’ personal ratings, but this is in comparison with a poll conducted three months ago by a different pollster.
Fairfax’s Peter Martin spruiks the new poll series thus:
Ipsos polls in more than 120 countries and has conducted election polls in Canada, the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland the United Kingdom, the Ukraine, Russia and Peru. It is taking over from long-term pollster Nielsen, which has withdrawn from political polling. Ipsos will be conducting national and state polls for Fairfax Media.
Ipsos’ 2008 US presidential poll was regarded as the most accurate of the 22 covering the election that brought Barack Obama to power.
Its first poll for The Age covering the Victorian election surveys 1400 voters, roughly twice the number usually surveyed in state polls, and broadly in line with the “gold standard” used for national polls.
“The margin of error for a sample of 1400 is about 2.6 per cent,” said Ipsos Australia managing director Mark Davis. “We may change the size of the state polls over time but certainly for the first one we wanted it to be a pretty robust sample.”
Ipsos also distinguishes itself from its competitors by calling mobile as well as fixed numbers.
Also out today was this effort from Essential Research, accumulating the result of its polling throughout the month of October. It shows the Labor lead at 52-48 (steady on last month) from primary votes of 38% for Labor (down one), 39% for the Coalition (steady) and 12% for the Greens (up one). Similar results from ReachTEL, Galaxy and Morgan are detailed in this earlier post.
Well… that is shock-wavey
Indeed. 🙂
Napthine must be really happy at the timing of Tony Abbott’s “Great Big New Tax”!!
The night before the 2010 Vic election I had a sudden “feeling” that despite polls/bookies odds Victorians were going to “sleepwalk” to a change of government. That is, without any huge dramatic “It’s Time” type feeling across a lot of the community.
I think the same thing is happening again – the polls are stubbornly in favour of Labor no matter what the Coalition do, and the engagement in the whole process across the swathe of Melbourne’s East and Outer East where I work is zilch!
What a bizarre day!
1. Climate Change Authority not axed !
2. They will conduct govt funded inquiry into ETS !!
3. Labor surging ahead in Victoria !!!
4. Bentleigh Greens come-from-behind win in FFA Cup !!!!
Wish I’d gone to that game after all – would have been something else!
ps – also apparently Joe Hockey “exploded” at a pizza shop???
Holy #$%^.
I wonder if Napthine will be reprising the famous bucketing that Kennett gave Howard in ’87.
This is certainly one case where they weren’t exaggerating.
I’d love to see the primary vote figures though.
How would an VIC ALP 55:45ish win affect the upper house seat distribution?
Rossmore
http://www.abc.net.au/news/vic-election-2014/calculator/
@ Rossmore, 9
Difficult to say, because the swings won’t be uniform across the regions (and people have slightly different voting habits for the upper houses than for lower houses – minor parties tend to do better in the upper house).
caf – also interesting
1990 – backlash against Vic Labor govt nearly cost Fed Labor election
1993 – backlash against Kennett govt and Tasmanian Libs help Keating win against the odds.
Thanks Victoria … But thats the lower house…. Dont believe Green’s site has a calc for the upper house … Hence my query….
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/victoria-state-election-poll-shows-labor-leading-napthine-government-20141029-11dqr1.html
Rossmore
Oopsy
More here on The Age outcome….
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/victoria-state-election-poll-shows-labor-leading-napthine-government-20141029-11dqr1.html
This Ipsos Poll is in line with the last Newspoll: Labor 55% to 45% LNP
The upper house calculator will only be available once the nominations close and the HTV are lodged I believe.
I’ve updated my seat-based modeling to include the latest poll.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/27/1339458/-Victorian-State-Election-Modeling-With-Venom
17% for the Greens. Morgan poll looking a lot more credible after that. I wonder how many seats that’s worth.
It actually has the Coalition primary vote 4% higher than that Newspoll, with Labor the same and the Greens a point higher. The real reason the headline figure is such a shocker, I think it’s clear, is that it’s respondent-allocated preferences. Otherwise it would likely be 54-46.
My feel of it from the polls to date and the results last time would be something like this:
East Met
Libs fall below 3 quotas, but Labor rising to just above 2 quotas means the Greens don’t have enough of a surplus to pick up to pass the Libs for the final seat. LIB 3, ALP 2.
East Vic
Coalition falls to about 3 quotas, Labor’s surplus stays ahead of the Greens and picks up their preferences to get Labor a second seat. LIB 2, NAT 1, ALP 2.
North Met
Labor reverses the loss at the previous election and retakes their third seat here from the Coalition. LIB 1, ALP 3, GRN 1.
North Vic
Labor would have to pick up a LOT here to be a chance of pinching a third seat off the Coalition, since their second seat already comes off the back of Green preferences. Enough conservative-type parties in the mix to get the Coalition over the line for seat #3. LIB 2, NAT 1, ALP 2.
SE Met
Falling Coalition vote leaves them short of a third seat on preferences, with whoever out of Labor and Greens is higher after Labor’s first two quotas getting the final seat (which I suspect will be Labor). LIB 2, ALP 3.
South Met
Coalition falls below 3 quotas, but picks up enough on minor prefs to keep their third, as the Greens (likely) getting a quota will deny Labor the surplus preferences it’ll need to close the gap on a second seat. LIB 3, ALP 1, GRN 1.
West Met
Labor to get three quotas. Greens a chance of getting a quota of their own. Coalition left holding the dead votes. LIB 1, ALP 3, GRN 1.
West Vic
Labor will pick up the Greens surplus to get to a third quota. Coalition will drop to <2.5 quotas primary vote and fall short of theirs (which they aren't running anyway). LIB 1, NAT 1, ALP 3.
This would give us a total of:
Coalition: 18 seats (-3)
Labor: 19 seats (+3)
Greens: 3 seats (+0)
And yeah, that 17% primary for the Greens is certainly something that gives the Morgan poll the other day more weight.
I’d say the 17% primary bumps up their chances of taking Richmond (I reckon they’d already be taking Melbourne and Brunswick on what they were polling before this), but it won’t be enough to get them Northcote.
Thanks Arnea…
Ipsos’s previous-election 2PP result is 53-47. So basically, the poll is a hell of a lot less radical than it first appeared, with the partial exception of that Greens result.
@ William, 26
What was the flow of Greens preferences to Labor at the last election like?
PhoenixGreen@20
I’ll take some convincing that a single poll by a new pollster (even with the international rep of Ipsos) gives that Morgan SMS much more credibility at all.
Green vote overestimation is a disease affecting all pollsters, some more than others, but no matter how many billion elections prove it is a thing, people just go on ignoring it. The Greens go on getting their hopes up, getting carried away with it and damaging themselves in the process.
I’d love to see a pollster that was notorious for getting the Green vote too low again, like Newspoll in the old days, just for balance!
AS, no one knows for sure because the state electoral commissions don’t generally provide that much detail, but the consensus seems to be that it was a tad under 80% – quite a bit lower than the 85.8% in Victoria at the federal election.
@ William, 29
So it’s more likely than not that using previous-election preference flows is systematically under-cooking the ALP’s 2PP in published poll results a bit (especially noting the increase in the Green vote and thus, the increasing influence Greens voters will have on the 2PP result), right?
After all, 5.8% of the Greens’ 17% result in this poll is almost a whole percent.
Very possibly, AS. Maybe even probably.
I wonder if there’s any correlation between an incumbent government behind in the polls going into an election and an increase in the preference flows from minor parties toward their Opposition.
22
Northern Vic
If there is a significant pickup in the ALP vote it is more likely to elect a Green than a third ALP as the ALP are bellow a second quota and thus go from needing Green preferences to providing a surplus, almost certainly bellow the size of the total Green vote, to the Greens.
Still: 3 Coalition and 2 ALP.
Southern Metro
Either 3-1-1 or 2-2-1 if the Liberals go down enough.
Western Vic
The Greens winning a seat on ALP preferences is far more likely as they will have their full vote (not the surplus you say they will, despite saying they will not elect anybody) and the ALP surplus is almost certain to be lower than that.
If the Swing is on in Western Victoria, then it will be 2 Coal, 2 ALP and 1 Green.
24
The Greens are in with a real chance of victory in Prahran.
The Greens also have a good chance at second in Footscray.
29
The State Electoral Commissions generally provide less information than the AEC.
The only example I can think of, of a state electoral commission website being better informative than the AEC site is the VEC providing booth results in a table rather than only giving the option of looking at results booth by booth and even that is tempered by the fact they do not show percentages by booth.
@ Tom, 34
Yes, I minced my words there a bit with “surplus”. When I said “surplus” I meant their vote total whenever it was insufficient to elect a member (regardless of whether they had already elected one).
@ Tom, 35
I don’t think the Greens have any chance at all in Prahran, simply for the reason that in that electorate, their pathway to victory is to out-poll Labor and get past the Liberals on Labor preferences. This would be possible if the Greens were surging, but Labor was flat-lining, but with both parties rising, the math is simply not going to work out for them.
They might have had a (remote) chance had Labor not done an about-face on the East-West Link, but having done so, I don’t think there’ll be an issue there.
On the other hand, seats like Melbourne, Richmond, Northcote and Brunswick present the Greens with a path to victory that is out-polling the Liberals (which they already did at the last election) and getting ahead of Labor on preferences.
The Greens’ primary vote might rise more than Labor’s, but the Labor party was about 8% clear of the Greens on first preferences at the last election, so they won’t close the gap.
The Greens could come second in Footscray, but they’d need to get pretty much 100% of Coalition preferences to pass Labor – and that’s assuming that Labor doesn’t just get 50% of the primary vote outright.
37 & 38
It looked like that is what you meant but accuracy requires pedantry.
The Greens are seriously targeting Prahran in a way they have not previously and that is likely to yield a vote increase for them.
@ Tom, 40
Yes, but not only would the Greens have to increase their vote by at least 8% (which is about twice the likely state-wide increase) as a baseline, they would then have to match any Labor primary vote gains on top of that.
To my mind, that means that they’ll need a primary vote increase somewhere on the order of 12%. When the East-West Link was still supported by Labor, that was entirely possible, but now that they’ve gone the way of the Greens and come out (effectively) against it, I don’t think the Greens have a chance in hell of achieving it.
And that, I say as someone who is a pretty big fan of the Greens.
39
The Greens are unlikely to win Coalition preferences in Footscray and thus have not chance of winning the seat. However they were less than 250 votes from second place last time and are likely to overtake the Liberals, at least on preferences. This is why I predict the Greens will come second in Footscray.
I do not think that the ALP will get 50% on primaries, in Footscray.
All bets are off, of course, if Daniel Andrews announces plans to build a nuclear waste dump in Prahran between now in the election.
@ Tom, 42
No prizes in our democracy for coming second in a single-member seat, unfortunately.
44
Coming second gives a lot more political credibility than coming third. It provides greater claim to major party status.
Labor has pretty much disappeared from Prahran. ALP Candidate isn’t even updating his facebook. His office is hidden away in a small street. Greens Office is on Commercial Road 5 shops away from the Prahran Market and seems well organised. Walk past at any time and it seems to be a hive of activity. They’re working hard to make up the gap to jump Labor. If anything they deserve it more, simply because Labor is missing. They’ve dropped the ball here and the Greens are trying to snatch it off them. Clem is pretty much roundly hated here now. I’d be surprised if he got back in.
Arrnea Stormbringer, Eastern Metro looks like FF was strong in OTHER, Southern Metro SEX was strongest minor party.
My guess would be Eastern Metro to LNP, Southern Metro to ALP
47
Remember that the redistribution has made Eastern Metro weaker for the Coalition by adding Ivanhoe.
@ bug1, 47
Yes, but the Libs polled over 3 quotas last time in South Metro. Even with the swing and the redistribution, I can’t see their surplus after two seats being low enough to not get over the line for a third on minor-party preferences, Sex Party or not (because the flow of preferences to Labor from the Greens will be almost non-existent – the Greens having used their votes to elect one of their own).
Of course, if Labor starts polling 55% or higher on previous-election preferences, it’ll be another story.
[Clem is pretty much roundly hated here now. ]
By “round here” you mean Prahran and Windsor, no doubt. But Prahran is also Toorak and South Yarra, without whom you’d never have had Clem in the first place.