Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Labor loses some of its edge on the primary vote in Essential’s last poll for the year, but retains a commanding two-party lead, and is widely expected to win next year’s election.

Courtesy of The Guardian, the final Essential Research poll for the year moves a point in favour of the Coalition, who now trail 53-47. We are also told the Coalition primary vote is at 37%, down one on a fortnight ago, and Labor is on 36%, down three. Which minor parties have taken up the slack will remain a mystery until the full report is published later today.

As it does in its last poll every year, Essential asked respondents to nominate if it had been a good or bad year for various political principals and politics in general, finding 65% rating it a bad year for Australian politics, compared with 54% last year, and 57% a bad year for the federal government.

There is also Essential’s occasional question on leaders’ personal qualities, which provide a more nuanced picture than the usual approval ratings of a decline in Scott Morrison’s popularity. Other findings: only 21% expect the Coalition will win the election, compared with “over half” for Labor; and 27% want an early election, with 52% preferring a full term.

The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1026.

UPDATE: Full results here. Greens up one to 11%, Labor up one to 7%.

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.

1,921 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 3 of 39
1 2 3 4 … 39

  1. C@tmomma @ #98 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 9:36 am

    Australia has compulsory voting. It’s a lot harder to effect the vote of nations that do.

    Though I wouldn’t put it past Putin to have been encouraging voter disillusionment in this country and non-enrolment.

    You mean like Boerwar and his “Vote Informal” campaign?

    Or do you mean like DTT and her “Putin is not as bad as everyone here seems to think” campaign?

    🙂

  2. Bushfire Bill @ #95 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 6:29 am

    Can we please have at least one day off from “Trump is going to jail next week” and “Trump may have already been secretly indicted” and “Meuller has Trump exactly where he wants him” stories?

    Trump will be re-elected in a landslide and go on the be the greatest Prezuhdint America has ever known. They’re busy scraping faces off Mt Rushmore to make way for a carving of The Donald right now.

    There you go. is that better? (insert eleventy bazillion smiley emojis here).

  3. I agree with Bushfire, Trump is still there and no amount of wishful reporting will remove him. I’ll celebrate when Trump really does go, not before.

  4. a r @ #81 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 9:16 am

    dave @ #45 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 7:30 am

    Wall Street thumped again last night.

    Dow Jones down 507 points – 2.07%
    S&P 500 down 2.08%

    It’s a thing of beauty. Long may the Dow linger below 24,000. It needs to stay there at least until Trump is gone.

    The last two days have seen extreme selling – almost capitulation selling.
    The day before that was also solid selling.

    “Normally” an indication some sort of bounce coming, if only a counter-trend move, even temporary.

    Wednesday if the Fed indicates a slowing of interest rate increases may be the catalyst. Also the ten day cycle falls about Friday – so we “might” see a bounce.

    A worry if not?

  5. Trump’s rage-tweets about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation are looking increasingly pathetic and impotent. On Sunday night, Trump blustered that “people are starting to see and understand what this Witch Hunt is all about,” as if he’s winning the argument over the investigation through sheer force of tweet.

    Yet a new NBC News poll demonstrates with remarkable clarity that Trump is decisively losing that argument. It finds that 62 percent of Americans think Trump has not told the truth about the Mueller investigation, while a meager 34 percent think he has — in other words, a huge majority understands that Trump’s been lying his head off about it. Half say Mueller’s investigation has given them more doubts about the Trump presidency. And 55 percent support Democrats opening “a number of investigations” into the administration — and, crucially, into Trump himself.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/17/signs-are-mounting-trump-has-been-badly-weakened-it-will-get-worse-him/?utm_term=.f1fea93517a6

  6. Andy E,

    Teh narrowing leading into Super Saturday was real enough, but entirely ephemeral because it was built on bullshit.

    It was a two turd coordinated Kill Bill bullshit-a-thon where the Coalition and the media pumped out the two entirely untrue memes that 1. Albo was gonna challenge because 2. Trumble was gonna win a by election.

    This reality denying bullshit was the ONLY story for over a month and obviously had an effect at the margins.

    But it had a shelf life of 7pm Super Saturday. As I said in the week before Super Saturday it was a desperate play from Trumble to save his job. But also a completely self destructive ploy. In week before the vote the media was saying Shorten was finished. I said that by making the vote a leadership referendum that Trumble had finished himself. That when Labor retained its seats the Albo nonsense would be dead, but the media would need to find a victim and one idiot in particular had painted a target on himself. The RWNJ media in particular wouldn’t miss that target.

    So yeah Trumble had pulled a point or two back in the polls, but he had to essentially guarantee his own destruction to do it. He bet the house on a long shot and lost his shirt. He was never actually getting back into an election competitive position. Just a short term sugar hit that killed him in the end.

    Scott Robinson is trying an even more frenzied and desperate version of the same game. He’s desperately trying to get something to bite that might pick up a point or two in the polls and stop his party wanting to knife him. And he’s is setting the seeds of his own destruction ever more effectively with each Brainfart. Unlike Trumble he doesn’t have media fluffers desperately trying to pump up their beau. And even the stupidest hacks have had Kill Bill beaten out of them.

  10. BB/Sohar

    Scroll on by.

    The Trump Brexit shit show is far more consequential and mind boggling than Morrison and co.
    It is informing our own politics.
    It is far more interesting than anything our politics is doing at present

  12. DG

    I think if Trump is still eligible to run he has at least a 50% chance of winning in 2020.

    ratsak

    You were right, and the “narrowing” is now like an albatross around Morrison’s neck, because no amount of Zombie Bus trips or stunts can get him anywhere near that 49-51 highwater mark, exacerbating the despair in the Murdoch media and their subsidiary political parties.

  13. It is far more interesting than anything our politics is doing at present

    Absolutely! Not even a Nationals MP no-sex scandal compares with the slow moving train wreck that is unfolding in the US.

  15. oh and Trump is an impotent President.
    From the get go,nhe couldn’t take the sanctions off for his friend Putin.
    And one by one his circle are being indicted and sentenced.
    It has been an amazing thing to watch.
    If on the other hand, people are interested in some unknown and inconsequential two bit Nat member, go right ahead

  16. Fess

    For the few of us in this blog that enjoy sharing the Trump saga, I don’t know why others have to get annoyed.
    They can scroll by
    I always do

  17. Vic:

    Speaking of Trump’s impotence, now it appears he can’t even get Republicans in Congress to support his border wall funding proposal. Not because they are about-facing on the wall, but because the lame duck members can’t be bothered showing up to work!

    Just days before a deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, President Trump, Democratic leaders and the Republican-controlled Congress are at a stalemate over the president’s treasured border wall. But House Republican leaders are also confronting a more mundane and awkward problem: Their vanquished and retiring members are sick and tired of Washington and don’t want to show up anymore to vote.

    Call it the revenge of the lame ducks. Many lawmakers, relegated to cubicles as incoming members take their offices, have been skipping votes in the weeks since House Republicans were swept from power in the midterm elections, and Republican leaders are unsure whether they will ever return.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/us/politics/congress-trump-shutdown.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

  18. Today’s Essential shows that the young among us (18-34 age group) are most likely to attend church this Christmas. Perhaps it is the group with ‘young families’ doing the ‘right thing’ for their kids, but it still strikes me as a little odd. I wonder how many people were polled in each age group for this week’s result.

  19. C@tmomma
    says:
    Though I wouldn’t put it past Putin to have been encouraging voter disillusionment in this country and non-enrolment.

    _______________________________

    Really? you think Putin cares about the informal vote in Australia? Let alone devote resources to nurture it.

  20. Confessions says: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 9:52 am

    It is far more interesting than anything our politics is doing at present

    Absolutely! Not even a Nationals MP no-sex scandal compares with the slow moving train wreck that is unfolding in the US.

    ****************************************************

    The complexity and intricacy and the number of persons involved in what may be the greatest conspiracy crime ever pulled in the digital age revolving around a person of reputed criminal past going back 30+ years – described as the worst ever person to be president – and involving many members of his family is fascinating to me and others on here …… its House Of Cards on an unbelievable realistic scale …..

  21. Victoria
    It’s a funny world, first the government injects money into the system to get us out of a recession with unachievable budget surpluses promised all they way. They get the economy moving so they pull money out to get the balanced budget creating another recession.

    As I understand it Modern Money Theory is simple saying; there is only two ways to get money into the system; governments put it in, they can do this because they print it, or private debt which has an obvious limit.

    We have just had a government pull 350 million dollars out of research so they can start the cycle all over again. This time around the option of private debt has gone.

    Do we really want to destroy our research capability so we can have a recession; are recessions really that much fun.

  22. Frednk

    I can’t wait for this govt to be given the heaveho.
    They prioritise everything that is contrary to the benefit of its citizens

  23. C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 9:54 am
    Everything gets talked about here!
    ———————————————
    No High Speed Rail discussed for some time on PB. Disappointing.

    Anyway leaving Adelaide now. Saw Bill at his best. Had a cuppa with Albo and a chat to KK. Swannie had a broad smile as he does when things go well.

    Had some time with Jason Clare who has responsibilities for Upnorth even though he comes from Keating’s old seat. Very comfortable and think we will be in good hands.

    I don’t mind seeing protesters but them on stage is what Murdoch and the Tories wanted.

    Lots of discussion about Mr Broad and his peccadilloes.

    Anyway. Bye Adelaide. Great food and wine and friendly people. Here’s to the election of the Shorten Labor Government.

  27. Peter van Onselen
    ‏@vanOnselenP
    19m19 minutes ago

    That Nats staffer who abused a journalist with foul language, also saying he hopes her family gets cancer: 1/ hasn’t been sacked, 2/ is on PAID leave, 3/ gets a big payout if he stays until the election, 4/ the PM doesn’t have the authority to force a sacking. What a joke…


  28. Victoria says:
    Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 10:07 am

    Meanwhile Majak Daw AfL Sudanese player has fallen from Bolte bridge and broken his hip.
    Not sure if accident or not

    It is now the go to place to jump and very unfair on those that have to deal with the mess.

  29. “Today’s Essential shows that the young among us (18-34 age group) are most likely to attend church this Christmas. Perhaps it is the group with ‘young families’ doing the ‘right thing’ for their kids, but it still strikes me as a little odd. I wonder how many people were polled in each age group for this week’s result.”

    Perhaps the poll result indicates that at this time of the year the only younger people at home and answering polling phone calls are conservative and boring. All the rest are out at parties.

  30. C@tmomma

    :
    Though I wouldn’t put it past Putin to have been encouraging voter disillusionment in this country and non-enrolment.

    OMG! OMG! OMG! Boerwar’s ‘Informal Party” could be a Kremlin front.

  32. Late Riser @ #117 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 9:01 am

    Today’s Essential shows that the young among us (18-34 age group) are most likely to attend church this Christmas. Perhaps it is the group with ‘young families’ doing the ‘right thing’ for their kids

    I like to believe that young people are smart enough to understand that merely attending church doesn’t do right for anything.

    If the younger generation starts skewing conservative, it’s game over.

  33. nath,
    You may not believe it but there is already credible evidence from the Intelligence community that China has had an ongoing project to disrupt Australian democracy and it is also a fact that there has been a putsch from the Right in this country to have voluntary voting. Not to mention the ongoing efforts at Voter Suppression, according to an ABC online story yesterday, which showed that the Coalition has reduced the number of AEC staff in the NT from 16 to 3 and that the number of Indigenous people enrolled to vote has, as a consequence, plummeted.

    To believe that Putin, along with others, would not have a goal that encouraged the dismantling of one of the most enduring democracies with compulsory voting at it’s core, is to be naive in the extreme.

  37. sustainable future @ #128 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 10:16 am

    “Today’s Essential shows that the young among us (18-34 age group) are most likely to attend church this Christmas. Perhaps it is the group with ‘young families’ doing the ‘right thing’ for their kids, but it still strikes me as a little odd. I wonder how many people were polled in each age group for this week’s result.”

    Perhaps the poll result indicates that at this time of the year the only younger people at home and answering polling phone calls are conservative and boring. All the rest are out at parties.

    The same effect could explain the small swing back to the Coalition in the latest poll.

    Polling at this time of year is largely meaningless.

  38. Boerwar,

    I reckon the numbers are out of whack in this article

    Yes – that’s why astronomers generally don’t use kilometres for (astronomical) distances.
    (1 AU ≈ 1.5 billion km, not 150m [sic] km.)

  39. C@t

    Big corporations already hold sway in our democracy.
    The assault being carried out most recently is doing its very best to dismantle the precarious edifice.
    Some think it is hyperbole and the west are the bad guys.
    Seriously would like to know which nation on earth we should be emulating.
    It is a frickin mystery to me

  41. a r @ #131 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 9:17 am

    Late Riser @ #117 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 9:01 am

    Today’s Essential shows that the young among us (18-34 age group) are most likely to attend church this Christmas. Perhaps it is the group with ‘young families’ doing the ‘right thing’ for their kids

    I like to believe that young people are smart enough to understand that merely attending church doesn’t do right for anything.

    If the younger generation starts skewing conservative, it’s game over.

    Yeah on both those points. And as far as that goes, it would be nice to know the age group splits for voting intention.

  42. At least the Trump comments here relate to politics in general. However, as I noted previously, everything is discussed here, from dogs to human secretions and excretions, the Cosmos and everything in-between.

  45. Late Riser @ #110 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 6:52 am

    Dan Gulberry @ #72 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 8:09 am

    Andrew_Earlwood @ #66 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 6:00 am

    my prediction of 123 labor seats after the election looks possible … 😉

    Speaking of which, can anyone remember who it was that was keeping tabs on everyone’s seat predictions for the election? From memory I had 98 seats to Labor. I might upgrade that a bit to either 99, or an even ton,

    Grimace?

    That sounds right. Thanks LR.

  47. ‘C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 10:28 am

    P1,
    Bluey the Octopus is actually a Red Octopus very cleverly disguised. ‘

    I just asked Bluey and he reckons that all cats are the same except that some cats are worse than others.

  50. ‏
    @samanthamaiden
    27s28 seconds ago

    Kevin Rudd spending a substantial part of his speech savaging Rupert Murdoch which is interesting given he seemed to be happy enough to suck up to him and his editors when he was PM.

Comments Page 3 of 39
1 2 3 4 … 39

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *