BludgerTrack: 52.1-47.9 to Labor

Two new polls this week have made no difference to Labor’s modest lead in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate.

The arrival of the fortnightly Newspoll this week, together with the usual Essential Research, makes for two new additions to the poll aggregate, but they have had next to no impact on voting intention, outside of a modest bump for the Greens, and none at all on the seat projection. Both polls provided new leadership ratings, which took some of the edge off the net approval for both leaders, and slightly widened Malcolm Turnbull’s lead on preferred prime minister.

bt2019-2016-10-12

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.

1,330 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.1-47.9 to Labor”

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  1. I see the Austrians have now passed legislation to demolish the house that Adolf Hitler was born in for fear it will become a shrine for neo-Nazis. While they are about it maybe they (and the Germans?) can burn all the stamps with Hitler’s face on it, or all the books, movies, TV programs etc in an attempt expunge history. The extreme Right have plenty of Nazi memorabilia and while the demolition may seem the right thing to do, the Poles are smarter in that they have left the blown-up gas chamber in Auschwitz in its shattered state as a reminder.

  2. I don’t think Malcolm wants to make concessions to Leonjhelm on guns. However, he does want to give himself elbow room to stab Leonjhelm in the back. Unfortunately, for them, they’ve done that too many times to bullet-head.

  3. Essential seems to be a step or two ahead of Newspoll lately. I expect when Newspoll hits 53-47 to Labor in a week or three that Truffles will be sniffed out by the Party’s pigs and tossed on the barbie.

  4. Lol!!

    Tony Abbott
    Tony Abbott – Verified account ‏@TonyAbbottMHR

    Disturbing to see reports of horse-trading on gun laws. ABCC should be supported on its merits.
    6:09 PM – 17 Oct 2016
    31 RETWEETS12 LIKES

  5. I would be surprised if any Lib did anything to mess with Howard’s only positive legacy. It was an error of epic proportions for Turnbull to open the door on gun laws. But we all know about Malcolm’s judgement.

  6. Elaugaufein
    “Which is odd. You’d think a party willing to nominate a candidate like Trump would see blowback just as a matter of course but they seem to have dodged it somehow, despite the fact that Trump is a clown show who made clowns of them all in the primary.”

    Yes, it’s very odd. And also very frustrating to Democrats running for the House or Senate.

    There is also the phenomenon of “anticipatory voting”. Many moderate and independent voters refuse to vote for Trump but are distrustful of Hillary (though many will vote for her anyway). But because they are anticipating a Clinton victory (because Trump’s poll numbers are dire), they are voting for Republicans in Congress, as a kind of ‘check’ on Hillary’s power.

  7. Turnbull could have ruled it out unequivically when asked this morning. He wouldnt have had this situation occur. What a frickin useless fool

  8. yep.

    Rowan retweeted
    David Crowe
    9m9 minutes ago
    David Crowe ‏@CroweDM
    Malcolm Turnbull has declared the Adler ban permanent, stood by gun laws. But it took a challenge from Bill Shorten to get there.

  9. Briefly
    “In a populous State, like Texas, changes in turnout can affect a lot of results…and help procure changes in future results. To invest in your own candidates and their campaigns when your opponents are weak makes a lot of sense to me. What a prize Texas would be.”

    I disagree. It’s a hollow victory. The Dems nabbing Texas to bulk up an already hefty electoral college vote gains the Dems nothing, except fleeting prestige. If Texas is within reach (and I’m not certain it is), then it implies that it’s a blow-out election and lower-hanging ‘red’ states have already fallen to Hillary – like Arizona, Alaska, Georgia, and maybe Missouri.

    There’s no point investing in Dem candidates in Texas, because the congressional districts from that state are gerrymandered to the gills. Many of those Texas districts are works of art, in securing plump margins for sitting GOP members (and quarantining Dems into as few districts as possible).

    I think the Dems should steer clear of Texas. It’s just bravado. The Dems should spend their warchest on House and Senate seats in swing states and blue states instead.

  10. Kakaru

    In the last four decades, only two other Democrats bothered to buy advertising time in Texas: her husband, Bill Clinton, in 1996, and Jimmy Carter in 1976. Carter was the last Democrat to carry the state.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/10/17/clinton-ramps-pressure-texas-rare-ad-buy

    It doesn’t matter what you think the Democrats are spending $1.5 million on advertising in Texas.

    They are doing this because it increases the down ballot effect of voters split ticket or no split ticket.

  11. BK
    The Adler is a 5-shot before it is modified and an 11-shot after it is modified which can legally be done in Australia.
    The modification takes a quarter of an hour.
    It would have to be the weapon of choice for any considering a massacre for whatever reason they are considering it.

  12. @ Kakuru

    The internet means that investments aren’t stuck in the location of the spend.

    Australian politics is about claiming to be the underdog. American politics is about declaring that you are going to win, because you always win, because you are a winner.

    The announcement that they might be spending some money in Texas has made its way across the world to us. It is the end zone dance of politics. It declares “the competition is already over. Trump supporters, don’t bother turning up. Democrats in states that are marginally Republican, it’s worth you turning up – even Texas has a chance of falling, so your state definitely has a chance.”

  13. Texas is on a demographic trajectory which will give it to the Dems sooner or later.
    All they have to do is sit around and wait while the GOP continues its deep love affair with racism.

  14. MarkDiStef: Timeline

    7:49 Turnbull won’t rule out shotgun negotiation
    12:01 Labor moves motion
    12:09 Tony Abbott tweets
    12:24 Turnbull rules it out

  15. This is how the Coals distort the truth.
    Always twisted half truths. This runs through everything they say or do (or don’t do).

    More disingenuity from @TurnbullMalcolm on the ABC this morning: @PeterDutton_MP “offered to be interviewed, Four Corners refused.” Cowards.

  16. Guytaur

    In a nutshell that is what happened. I have always understood how useless Turnbull is, and this latest escapade merely confirms it

  17. Guytaur
    “It doesn’t matter what you think the Democrats are spending $1.5 million on advertising in Texas.”

    $1.5 million? That’s not a whole lot for such a huge state. Dem Senate candidate Maggie Hassan will easily spend over $10 million alone on her race in New Hampshire (a swing state). And that doesn’t include the budget for Hillary’s campaign in NH.

    “They are doing this because it increases the down ballot effect of voters split ticket or no split ticket.”

    I hope you’re right. At this stage of the campaign, Dem congressional candidates aren’t seeing much ‘spillover’ from the presidential campaign. That’s what the polls on individual races are saying – quite sobering for the Dems. But things can change. In 2012, many House and (especially) Senate races broke late in the campaign for the Dems.

  18. I know I’m almost at Rex on Shorten levels with it, but…

    I’ve said it before. The simplest explanation for why Turnbull does so so many idiotic things is because he’s an idiot.

  19. Boerwar
    “Texas is on a demographic trajectory which will give it to the Dems sooner or later.”

    I think this is overstated. Yes, the Latino population in Texas is booming. But there is evidence that the whites in Texas are becoming more conservative over time. Part of this is self-selection (conservative whites moving to Texas). Part of this is whites within Texas becoming more conservative as they become uneasy about the increased minority population in the state.

  20. BK
    Yep. The other thing is that the weight of a solid shot at close range, which is basically how you use shotguns against big targets, is very large and would do massive damage.
    Inter alia it creates, politically, a small probability but huge impact decision.
    If there is a massacre as a result of the government of the day allowing in weapons that it had been warmed against, it would do very serious political damage, IMO.

  21. RATSAK – I started reading Andrew E Street’s book on Malcolm (which is highly critical). But when Street said on page two or three that Turnbull has “remarkable gifts” I closed the book. That was enough for me. Malcolm’s only gift is for persuading people he’s gifted.

  22. Someone posted this over at the Guardian live blog:

    Lunch special at today’s Monkey Pod lunch – Truffles in spineless jelly.

    Love it.

  23. Scott Bales
    “The announcement that they might be spending some money in Texas has made its way across the world to us. It is the end zone dance of politics. It declares “the competition is already over.”

    I appreciate the psychological warfare angle. But the “competition is already over” (= Trump is finished, Hillary will win) doesn’t necessary help congressional Dem candidates. Rather than motivate Dem voters (and de-motivate GOP voters), it may just lead to more ticket-splitting from voters who have factored in a Hillary victory, and want to use Congress as a bulwark by voting GOP.

    This is not just handwaving on my part – there is quantitative data to back this up. Ticket-splitting is on the rise among likely voters.

  24. @ Kakaru – I’d love to see this evidence that you readily declare exists about white people in Texas becoming more conservative, and show that the increase is correlated to an increasing Latino population.

  25. Kakaru

    From 538

    Since President Obama’s re-election in 2012, Republicans have worried about what an increasingly diverse electorate will mean for their future as a national party. Democrats, meanwhile, have started talking about turning ruby red states like Arizona and Texas blue.

    How worried should Republicans be? And how realistic are those Democratic aspirations? A new study released on Thursday — based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey — points toward some answers: Republicans should be worried, but Democrats in Austin and Phoenix shouldn’t stock up on confetti just yet.

    The study, from the left-leaning Center for American Progress, projects the growth in eligible voters in 12 states by 2014 and 2016. The projections — which broke down the eligible voter growth by race — show that fast-paced minority growth coupled with slow or negative growth among non-Hispanic whites has a substantial impact on the eligible voter makeup of the 12 states that the center examined.

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-democrats-turn-texas-and-arizona-blue-by-2016/

    Note that was posted on March 1 not October the 18th

  26. Yeah and Turnbull was willing to horsetrade for the ABCC bill. Same same……

    Sky News Australia
    2m2 minutes ago
    Sky News Australia ‏@SkyNewsAust
    .@ljayes reveals fmr Abbott Govt promised to end ban on Adler firearm 4 @DavidLeyonhjelm’s vote on immigration bill (@Dan_Bourchier)

  27. Kakuru @10:53 AM:

    And that’s precisely why Clinton should go for Texas. With 36 House seats, it’s the second-biggest prize in the Union for control of the House – even with all the gerrymandered R+8-R+10 seats, in a Democratic wave year, those could be toppled.

  28. @ Kakaru – I do not know enough about the intricacies of the US political system to discuss any further.

    My point was simply this: The Democrats hire a lot of smart people, whose job it is to understand this stuff. They are not perfect at their job, but they are good at it.

    These people have decided to spend a bit of money in Texas. Roughly 3 times what the Canberra Liberals just spent to lose an election and have a 3% swing against them. Texas has much more than 3x Canberra’s population, and US politics has higher $ amounts than Australian. So the amount is tiny.

    They might be doing this for the impact on Texas, they might be doing it to generate headlines outside of Texas or they might have made a mistake.

    I think you comprehensively declaring that it was a mistake is too strong a statement without knowing, or even really considering, all the possible angles they could be approaching this from.

  29. Operation Adler is blowing up for the Coalition left, right and centre.
    Turnbull fucked up the handling and ducked for cover from all the incoming.
    So Abbott fired off a round or two from cover – at his own side.
    It turns out that Abbott has shot himself in the foot cos Abbott did two years ago exactly what he is criticizing Turnbull for today.
    Kapow. Kaboom. Rat a tat tat.
    Meanwhile, Shorten is blowing smoke rings from his gun, fish in a barrel for the shooting of.

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