Wentworth by-election minus zero days

One last report of internal polling for the Liberals suggests the situation for them is bad, though maybe not quite as bad as some reports this week have suggested.

Dawn breaks, and we have arrived at the end of the campaign without a single media-commissioned opinion poll. All those results from ReachTEL (which you can find listed on the sidebar of my by-election guide) were commissioned by left-of-centre political concerns; the other source of intelligence has been the purported internal polling provided by the Liberals in the name of scaring wavering voters back into line. The last such is from today’s Daily Telegraph – make what you will of the following:

Internal party polling, obtained by The Saturday Telegraph, shows the Liberals are faring better in the contest in Sydney’s wealthiest electorate than they have admitted, with a primary vote of 39 per cent, although this is still not an outright winnable position … Earlier this week, polling conducted by the Liberal Party collapsed to as low as 41 to 59 two party-preferred. However, tracking polling has improved since then.

If all goes well, I’m hoping to take a leap forward with my election night results reporting this evening, I having finally – I hope – wrapped my head around enough Python and Javascript to offer fully automated live results, updated by the minute from the Australian Electoral Commission media feed. For a preview of how this will look (with a few imperfections), I have retroactively applied the set-up to the final results from the Super Saturday by-elections in July: go here and click on one of the five electorate tabs.

Have a look down any given page, and you will see booth results in a nice and neat tabular form, with tabs to allow you to choose whether they appear as raw votes, percentages or swings from the last election. I flatter myself that this will be the handiest way of observing booth results as they come in: the AEC doesn’t publish them at all on its site on election night (unless there’s been a recent change of policy), and navigating Antony Green’s display at the ABC requires a bit more effort.

You will also note “win probability” gauges, copying the concept the New York Times made famous on the unforgettable night/day of the 2016 presidential election. This will only get a workout if the AEC publishes a Liberal-versus-Labor notional two-party count, as this will be the only way to allow for a swing calculation. If that’s indeed what happens, it will come with the fairly substantial qualification that the result will apply only if Liberal and Labor are indeed the last two candidates in the count, and it’s not the general view that that’s what will happen. One way or another, the facility should be regarded as experimental for the time being.

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.

134 comments on “Wentworth by-election minus zero days”

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  4. Somewhere in Wentworth…. Laocoon is about to commence hander-outerer duties of Phelps’ HTV. The sun has risen on a glorious morning, the forces of righteousness are facing the day with courage. Queues already in place. Vote early…

  5. Is anyone on the ground in Wentworth. Back when I was on booths there was usually a big line up of voters at 8am if there was a strong mood for change. 8am has been and gone in Sydney so…?

  6. Laocoon @ #2 Saturday, October 20th, 2018 – 8:27 am

    Somewhere in Wentworth…. Laocoon is about to commence hander-outerer duties of Phelps’ HTV. The sun has risen on a glorious morning, the forces of righteousness are facing the day with courage. Queues already in place. Vote early…

    Long queues early is usually a sign of engaged voters with a message to send!

  7. William congratulations and great work on your live results system. I was just working on my regression spreadsheet to be able to analyse booth-level 2PP figures and project the overall result. Can I ask whether your ‘Projected 2PP’ numbers come from the AEC feed, or are derived from regression analysis of counted booths or the 2PP swing at counted booths? Depending on the answer I might still run the spreadsheet.

  9. Laocoon

    Those queues are very encouraging.

    I said before that on normal results the Libs should retain Wentworth 59/41 2pp. On the average of reported 2pp results I will say Phelps by 51/49.

    Regardless of the expectations management (ScumMo’s only skill?) any result where Phelps or Murray gets even close to Sharma will be a terrible result for ScumMo.

  12. Well done William on your amended election pages.

    The information in tabular and graphical format is very clear.

    I might use this as an example of how to present information in one of my TAFE classes (you don’t mind William?)

  14. William, thank you very much for providing this live-update table for us al tonight. You should be aware you are a rock star in our local Nerds Anonymous meeting.

    Seriously, though, I am sure I am not alone in greatly appreciating the work you have done to lend us such insight into tonight’s by-election – both on the night itself and in the weeks leading up to it.

  15. C@tmomma says:
    Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 8:54 am
    Go Tim Murray and Labor! May you have run the best ‘Running Dead’ campaign ever!
    ————————————-

    Wouldn’t it be a hoot if Sharma finished third in the penultimate count, leaving a Phelps-Murray TCP!

  16. Socrates says:
    Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 8:37 am
    “Regardless of the expectations management (ScumMo’s only skill?) any result where Phelps or Murray gets even close to Sharma will be a terrible result for ScumMo.”
    —————————————

    Absolutely.

    And as for the PR PM’s expectations management “skills”, anyone can do that if the media are eager accomplices.

  17. Michael

    Even going back 20 years to elections the Liberals did worst in, they never got below around 54/46 2pp in Wentworth. Anything near that is bad, below that is terrible. Given that they have put up a fairly credible candidate, a loss is disastrous.

  19. canberra boy:
    Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 8:34 am
    ————————————-

    No worries. I do think you are absolutely right that nobody has any information which would rationally justify them in believing it to be certain that Murray would lose to Sharma in ALP-Lib TPP.

  20. Thanks William, good luck wrangling python and JavaScript.

    I agree worse than 54/46 is very bad for the Liberals. I think they will loose it.

  22. This is going to be a fascinating count. There seems to be a widespread expectation that Mr Sharma will lose. Certainly possible, but I’m not quite so sure. I recall at least one previous general election, I can’t remember exactly which one now, in which the alleged “doctors’ wives” vote was much talked up, but didn’t really materialise. Just as there are ALP loyalists on this blog who will vote for that party no matter what it has been up to in government, there will be the same sorts in Wentworth who are rusted on to the Liberals.

    On the other hand, the same could have been said of North Sydney before it was won by Ted Mack.

  23. Pedant @ #22 Saturday, October 20th, 2018 – 9:41 am

    This is going to be a fascinating count. There seems to be a widespread expectation that Mr Sharma will lose. Certainly possible, but I’m not quite so sure. I recall at least one previous general election, I can’t remember exactly which one now, in which the alleged “doctors’ wives” vote was much talked up, but didn’t really materialise. Just as there are ALP loyalists on this blog who will vote for that party no matter what it has been up to in government, there will be the same sorts in Wentworth who are rusted on to the Liberals.

    On the other hand, the same could have been said of North Sydney before it was won by Ted Mack.

    You only have to go back to Bennelong when there was much excited speculation that Kenneally would win that by election.

  24. Hi William,

    The graphics look good.

    You indicate that the “win probability” guages will only work if the AEC provide a Lib vs Lab 2PP?
    Why? Your examples include Mayo, which clearly wasn’t.
    Do you mean it will work so long as the AEC provides a 2PP (for whichever 2 candidates are leading) or must it be Lib vs Lab (for booth by booth historical comparisons)?

  27. The Doctor’s Wives wasn’t really anything besides a random connection of ideas that somehow became a thing and not based in polling.

  29. As far as I am aware no one has talked about “Doctors’ Wives” with respect to the prospect of the Libs losing Wentworth.

    The big factors in putting a Lib loss in Wentworth in play are that (a) despite the wealth factors it’s a fairly diverse electorate that in the relatively recent past has been a less than solid Liberal seat, and (b) there’s an independent with decent name/brand recognition making a firm play up the centre and who can draw preferences from across the field should she stay in the contest, and (c) Malcolm Turnbull.

  31. Looks very nice, William.

    Paul,

    He needs a swing for the win probability gauges, and Phelps wasn’t in the previous election so no swing can be calculated. By contrast, Sharkie was.

  34. Thanks for your sidebar guide William, very good. In your breakdown of recent Reachtel polls there is a ‘KP’ listed and the numbers look a bit high for Katter. What does that refer to?

  35. BillBo’s new results page is awesome!

    And this corflute reminder outside a Wentworth booth – if you look very closely at the tiny endorsement
    At the bottom, it is the ‘we’re not running dead’ ALP

  38. Awesome work – love the automated live results page.

    Minor tweak recommendation: In the pie chart Labor looks a bit like orange rather than red, is it possible to choose a deeper red hue?

  41. Ven
    True. First of all, almost 50% of doctors are female. And my experience is that the doctors politics are much the same as their partners, if anything to the left of their partner. Nowadays doctors are pretty middle of the road, slightly left on social and slightly right on economics much like Phelps.

  47. Raising Ted Mack highlights another factor if Phelps wins. There have been some comments along the lines of “the Liberals might lose this time but will recover Wentworth for sure at the next general election”. Phelps is intelligent and in touch with the electorate. If she wins, like Mack and Sharkie, she might be hard to shift. Labor could simply save resources.

  48. I’m suspicious of the leaked Liberal polling. It seems to be setting up a narrative that a narrow win means the Liberals pulled off “Mighty Ducks” style victory.

  50. Of course leaked polling should be treated with suspicion, and it is clearly aimed at both scaring disgruntled libs who might be thinking of lodging a protest vote back into the tent, as well as expectation management.

    However, actually portraying the seat as lost is a dangerous game in these circumstances because one of the main barriers to independents being elected is people thinking that they have no chance – once an independent looks like they are viable I would imagine that many people who wouldn’t have otherwise put Phelps first, or high, on their preference list would swing her way. Plus bandwagon effect.

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