The Advertiser has another two seat polls from YouGov Galaxy – one from a Liberal seat and one from Labor, with the incumbent parties under pressure in both cases from SA Best. In the Adelaide Hills seat of Heysen, to be vacated with the retirement of former Liberal leader Isobel Redmond, the Liberals are on 39% of the primary vote compared with 22% for SA Best, 16% for the Greens, 15% for Labor and 8% others. That would leave SA Best in need of 72% of preferences, and the respondent-allocated two-party result has them not quite getting there, with the Liberals leading 51-49.
In the Whyalla-based seat of Giles, where Labor have been making life difficult for themselves recently, Labor incumbent Eddie Hughes is on 37% with SA Best on 31%, the Liberals on 23%, the Greens on 3% and others on 6%. With SA Best needing 60% of preferences, the poll calls it lineball on two-party preferred. The polls were conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, from samples of 501 in Heysen and 504 in Giles.
We’ve also had the declaration of nominations for the lower house today, and there turn out to be 264 candidates for an average of 5.6 per seat. Labor, Liberal and the Greens are contesting every seat, SA Best are contesting 36, the Conservatives 33, the Dignity Party 30, and there are nine from small minor parties and 15 independents. The upper house will be done tomorrow.
On Rau and Green preferences, after reading them I cant really argue with the other Greens reasons for preferencing against them. Public consultation is a bad joke in SA and Rau is one of the chief culprits.
As for the Liberal campaign, this smacks of desperation:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-28/liberal-website-deemed-misleading-by-sa-electoral-commission/9495190
Alexander Downer campaigns for Jay Weatherall (unintentionally!)
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/europe/south-australia-is-fine-after-the-car-industry-closed-downer-20180301-p4z2ac.html
It’s understood the Liberals have submitted a preference ticket to the state Electoral Commission that puts Labor last across the vast majority of the state’s 47 lower house seats, reflecting an internal belief that the campaign is fast reverting to a traditional “two horse race”.
InDaily has been told the party has been buoyed by internal polling in key seats, including in north-eastern Hartley – where Xenophon himself is running and where sources say Liberal incumbent Vincent Tarzia remains consistently 8-10 per cent ahead on primary votes.
The SA Best leader hopes to finish second in the primary vote and win the seat on preferences – but that task will be made significantly harder with the Greens confirming they will preference him below both Labor and the Liberals on their How To Vote cards in the key seat.
Intriguingly, it’s understood Xenophon did not initially respond to Greens entreaties to discuss preference arrangements and only returned calls on the matter yesterday – after the party had already printed its preference card to lodge with the Electoral Commission.
All preference tickets must be lodged with the commission today. The Greens polled 8.4 per cent in Hartley at the 2014 election and their preferences could yet derail SA Best’s incursion into a range of seats.
Apart from 11 seats in which they will run an open ticket, the Greens will preference Labor ahead of SA Best and the Liberals in all but one seat – John Rau’s Enfield electorate, as InDaily revealed earlier this week.
But the Greens have also opted to preference the Liberals ahead of SA Best in 15 seats: Black, Chaffey, Colton, Davenport, Elder, Finniss, Giles, Hartley, Heysen, Kavel, Lee, Mawson, Morialta, Newland and Waite.
The move could prove a telling blow to Xenophon’s statewide campaign as 10 of those seats have long been considered fertile hunting grounds for his fledgling party.
https://indaily.com.au/news/politics/2018/03/01/libs-put-labor-last-two-horse-race-greens-take-aim-mr-x/
Should be good now, but you may have to do a hard refresh.
https://www.pollbludger.net/sa2018/PortAdelaide.htm