ReachTEL: 50-50; Ipsos: 51-49 to Coalition

Two new national polls do nothing to dispel perceptions of a tight race, and they’re accompanied by another result showing Labor with its nose in front in the key outer Sydney seat of Macarthur.

Two new national polls this evening, plus a local one from the electorate of Macarthur:

• The latest Ipsos result for the Fairfax papers, which we can now expect on Friday night rather than Sunday at least for the period of the campaign, has the Coalition two-party lead unchanged at 51-49, with the Coalition primary vote down a point to 43%, Labor up one to 34%, and the Greens steady on 14%. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 51-29 to 47-30, and his approval rating is steady on 48%, with disapproval down two to 38%. Bill Shorten is respectively up two to 40% and down three to 46%. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1497, compared with the usual Ipsos survey period of Thursday to Saturday.

• Seven News brings us a new poll from ReachTEL which is the third such poll in a row to have the result at 50-50, the most recent of which was conducted a few days after the budget on May 5. However, the primary votes look better for Labor this time, with the Coalition on 42.6%, down from 44.2%; Labor on 36.6%, up from 35.1%; the Greens on 9.9%, up from 9.5; and the Nick Xenophon Team on 2.7%, down from 4.2%. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead over Bill Shorten has narrowed from 57.7-42.3 to 55.6-44.4; Turnbull’s very good plus good rating is up from 28.1% to 28.6%, and his poor plus very poor rating is up from 34.5% to 35.1%; the corresponding results for Bill Shorten record a solid improvement, with very good plus good up from 24.6% to 27.9%, and poor plus very poor down from 44.0% to 38.4%. The automated phone poll was recorded last night from a sample of 2407 – full results can be found here.

• There is also a separate ReachTEL poll for the Macarthur electorate, which the Russell Matheson holds for the Liberals on a post-redistribution margin of 3.3%, down from 11.4% at the 2013 election. Here ReachTEL credits Labor with a 51-49 lead on two-party preferred. After distributing results from a secondary question prompting the 10.7%, the primary votes are Liberal 41.4%, Labor 41.1%, Greens 7.3% and Nick Xenophon Team 2.5%. The poll was conducted last night from a sample of 628.

UPDATE: Here’s what the BludgerTrack tables look like with the ReachTEL and Ipsos result added, including the Ipsos leadership ratings. This translates into a higher result for “others” at the expense of both major parties, with no change to the national two-party result (UPDATE: Turns out this was because I’d failed to distribute ReachTEL’s undecided results, so scratch that). The Coalition is down a seat in New South Wales and up one in Western Australia, although the remarkable swing result from the latter is only slightly modified.

bludgertrack-2016-05-21

UPDATE 2: Here’s another chart to brighten your weekend, this one tracking the state-level swings to or from the Coalition on Malcolm Turnbull’s watch. Broadly speaking, what emerges is a levelling off since March everywhere except Western Australia, where the momentum of the government’s early year slide has been maintained. The uptick to the Coalition in Queensland is a curiosity, and may simply reflect the dominance there at the moment of a single data point, namely the 1176-sample poll there from Galaxy last week (though it’s not nearly as dominant as last week’s 3019-sample state-level poll from ReachTEL is in Tasmania). You might also find evidence that the submarines contract was a steadier for the Liberals in South Australia if you’re looking at it, but the elephant in the room there is the 22.2% others vote, which crept up from 13.5% at the start of Turnbull’s tenure to 14.6% at the end of the year, and has since swelled to 22.2%. I’ll provide a more detailed display of state-level breakdowns soon, I promise.

2016-05-21-swing-by-state

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,780 comments on “ReachTEL: 50-50; Ipsos: 51-49 to Coalition”

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  1. ‘Mr Turnbull’s spokesman said the Prime Minister remembered the lunch, but not the guests’ name..’

    Well, that’s a bummer for Mr Jones.

  14. Jenauthor

    Another way of looking at it. If the fibs had not thrown the kitchen sink at Labor last week, would the polls have actually moved?

  16. Bill Shorten’s standing with voters has jumped to a 12-month high, underpinning Labor’s election-winning lead in Newspoll, as Malcolm Turnbull’s support has continued to tumble.

    The latest Newspoll, taken ­exclusively for The Australian, shows that after the first two weeks of the election campaign the government has been unable to claw back Labor’s two-party-preferred lead of 51 per cent to the ­Coalition’s 49 per cent.

    And the massive approval rating enjoyed by the Prime Minister in the early months after he replaced Tony Abbott last September has been wiped out.

    With six weeks to go until polling day, the Newspoll represents a two-party swing against the government of 4.5 per cent. If repeated on election day with a uniform swing, it would suggest about 23 Coalition seats would be lost and Mr Shorten would lead a Labor government with a narrow majority.

    Voters still think the Coalition will win the July 2 election, although that expectation is also slipping.

    The Coalition’s primary vote is steady at 41 per cent while Labor dropped one point to 36 per cent, the Greens are unchanged at 11 per cent and other parties and independents are up one point to 12 per cent.

    Mr Turnbull remains the preferred prime minister by 46 per cent to Mr Shorten on 31 per cent. But the lead over his Labor rival has been more than halved.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/election-2016-newspoll-shows-coalition-failing-to-peg-back-alp-lead/news-story/12b18750edf6bc2bf5162151aceaca27

  18. Turnbot has nothing to campaign on. He talks about same old labor. He is the same as Abbott.What can they possibly say for the next 6 weeks that would give them a bounce in the polls? They are a policy vacuum,a bit like Donut Trump.

  21. This will probably spook Turnbull into making even more extreme misjudgements than he already has. He is likely to blow up soon.

  22. The ABC election calculator gives Labor 79 seats for a 51-49 result, or 76 if you factor in sophomore and retiring MP effects.

  23. I hope the ALP discards its traditional wimpishness and makes itself busy in government and inquire into:

    The NBN,
    business funding/control of politics,
    public broadcasting and h0w to restore its impartiality,
    the AFP and its role as LNP agent,
    recent constraint of trade agreements and the traitorius actions on LNP Ministers,
    rights to a real FOI,
    options for electoral reform to reflect the intention of voters,
    citizens rights against executive government bombast, intrusion and general bastardry,
    the role of aboriginal cultural values in Australia’s constitution, land management and future culture, and
    why the Greens have abandoned the environment to become hipster wankers…..

  24. I’ll take this, considering that the Libs have thrown the kitchen sink at Labor over the past week, in terms of boats and dog whistling on asylum seekers and also the NBN AFP raids.
    I’m the eternal pessimist, I still expect Turnball to win, BUT the trend is going Shorten’s way, inch by inch.

  25. The trend, the trend….

    Aaagh, but the trend for 2PP is flat. Whilst kitchen sinks may have flown, and the Australian Fashion Police photographed Labor’s nbn underwear, the figures show Bill is campaigning for himself, and doing well. History shows the individual’s polling is only a shadow of the 2pp. What will it take to move to 52/48 and scare the superannuation out of Dennis Shanahan.

  26. ABC news tonight – their idea of a reliable straw poll…..interviewing 6 people at the Watsons Bay food and wine festival.
    WTF

  27. I wonder who would replace Turnbull if Labor wins? Not Abbott surely, although it would have to be a right winger or someone who is happy to front a hard right agenda. Six months ago I would have said Morrison, but he’s being kept out of site. He’s not Treasurer material, let alone PM. Julie Bishop? Would she be up to the job? If the numbers are as tight as Jimmy says, the L/NP will be out to sieze power early if they can.

  28. Good results for Labor. 🙂

    I expect now that the LNP will arrange the “accidental” release of a terror suspect so they can ramp up the fear again.

    Fear seems to be all they have got and its been failing big time

  29. Who’d be more pissed off if Labor actually won?
    Big Business? Murdoch? 2GB shockjocks? The dufus currently in charge of the CSIRO?

  32. Wondering what supposed Labor scandals Simon Benson, Andrew Clennell and Dennis Atkins can conjure up this week

  33. The very gratifying thing is the Dutton has had no impact at all. Fear and loathing are off the menu.

    The tracking polling must be fascinating….

  34. I imagine that if it were a real election the Green vote would be 9% and Labor 38% on current numbers. Some Greens will play it safe because they don’t want the L/NP under any circumstances. If it goes out to 54-46 Labor then the Green vote will stay solid because they have no fear of more Abbott-Turnbull, and can afford to protest.

  36. The australian’s poll calculator is worthless – it assumes a uniform swing in all seats. In reality, labor seats will swing back harder, and many marginals will be hard to win. The Australian and their political arm, LNP, must be nervous that because ~60% of voters think the LNP will win, people will think they can have a protest vote. They are hoping that making out that labor is on track to win 80 seats will deter this and scare voters back to the government. I’m waiting for turnbull to realise that all he has to do to win government is to make some more progressive statements – I suspect he may ‘go rogue’ in the last days of the campaign – ditch the SSM plebiscite in favour of legislation, commit to working to get a bi-partisan climate policy, and – I dunno – the republic? commit to the full gonski ? or adopt the same medicare policies as labor?

    His and the libs economic agenda is ‘un-Australian’/anti-egalitarian, so he probably won’t do the last two. However, if he shows some spark of the ‘old’ (imagined?) Mal, he’ll romp home.

    His only hope of being the PM he seemed to want to be is to go rogue and win an agenda he want to implement.

  38. I am very surprised and a little confused. The article as linked by Leroy Lynch earlier in the Herald Sun. It has the Turnbull meeting with slain Mafia Lawyer on its front page.

  39. briefly

    Yes hopefully AS demonising is off the menu. That being so Turnbull dismissing Tim Costello torture comments today could see some votes leaving the LNP.
    I so hope this means we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on the demonising of AS and that its not a train.

  40. Sohar

    I hope your analysis is right. It would mean the progressive vote would be up and that Labor would win in a landslide 👿

  43. Well; as much as I’d have liked to see it tick over to 52-48, this is still a good result. Mal’s PPM lead shrinks significantly. This also happened to Rudd during the last campaign as people solidified behind the Coalition. As I’ve said across this weekend, it is getting harder and harder to see how the Coalition arrest the current trend. Nice to see the Greens primary stubbornly on 11%, in spite of the pending death of the Greens predicted over and over on Poll Bludger.

  44. The CPG wisdom was that asylum seekers would hurt Labor.
    I hope we’ve moved on from another election being won by an appeal to fear and prejudice.

  45. Y’know, wouldn’t be nice if News Ltd. would publish the PM and OL net satisfaction ratings in tandem with the voting intention and PPM scores?

    Or is that too much to ask for?

  46. I honestly don’t know why the commenters here are reporting back the results of seat projections that are calculated not only off the back of a single poll result but also using a uniform swing, applied nationally. Especially when the very blog they’re posting on goes to the effort of implementing a complex mathematical model that involves breaking the swing down by state in order to achieve a much more accurate projection. You’d almost think they were morons…

  48. Matt31- Turnball might have the old tax cut and family payments bribe still to come, but then again, it didn’t work for Howard in 2007.

  49. sustainable future @ #1687 Sunday, May 22, 2016 at 11:01 pm

    As voters realise the pendulum is swinging Labor’s way there will be a bandwagon effect. The desire to change the government will become self-reinforcing. Voters will want to take the opportunity to put the uncertainty, the volatility, the incompetence and the stupidities of the recent past behind them. They can do this by voting for the familiar – voting for the certitudes offered by Labor on education, health, Medicare, social security, tax, infrastructure, the environment….These are the staples of of public policy. They are also synonyms for Labor. By contrast, the LNNP have got just one thing – Turnbot. And he has shown the electorate he is the antonym of certainty. He is doubt and confusion and contradiction.

    I’ve been saying it for months and I’ll say it again. Labor are going to thrash the LNP this time.

  50. Nappin

    No. It was never reported in past that Turnbull lunched with this mafia lawyer who was recently murdered in the street. The lawyer in question had a bounty on his head cos supposedly the mafia head believed he was leaking to fairfax. This mafia head has connections to fibs which was reported on four corners and in fairfax over the years

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