Essential Research: 51.5-48.5 to Labor

Labor maintains a modest yet decisive lead in the final Essential poll for the campaign, as YouGov Galaxy prepares to unload a barrage of seat polls throughout the day.

Update: YouGov Galaxy seat polls

As explained below, the News Corp papers are releasing YouGov Galaxy seat polls today on an hourly schedule. The results will be updated here as they become available. The polls were conducted Monday and Tuesday from samples of around 550.

Deakin (Liberal 6.4%, Victoria): Liberals lead 51-49. Primary votes: Liberal 44% (50.3% in 2016), Labor 37% (30.1%), Greens 9% (11.3%) and the United Australia Party 4%. Sample: 540.

Flynn (LNP 1.0%, Queensland): The LNP leads 53-47. Primary votes: LNP 37% (37.1% in 2016), Labor 33% (33.4%), Greens 3% (2.8%), United Australia Party 11%, One Nation 7%. Sample not specified.

Macquarie (Labor 2.2%, NSW): Labor leads 53-47. Primary votes: Labor 43% (35.5% in 2016), Liberal 42% (38.2%), Greens 8% (11.2%), United Australia Party 5%. Sample: 573.

La Trobe (Liberal 3.2%, Victoria): Dead heat on two-party preferred. Primary votes: Liberal 43% (42.2% in 2016), Labor 39% (31.4%), Greens 7% (10.6%), United Australia Party 3%. Sample: 541.

Forde (LNP 0.6%, Queensland): Dead heat on two-party preferred. Primary votes: LNP 42% (40.6% in 2016), Labor 41% (37.6%), Greens 5% (6.4%), One Nation 7%, United Australia Party 4%. Sample: 567.

Reid (Liberal 4.7%, NSW): Liberals lead 52-48. Primary votes: Liberal 44% (48.8% in 2016), Labor 36% (36.3%), Greens 7% (8.5%), United Australia Party 6%. Sample: 577.

Higgins (Liberal 7.4%, Victoria): The Liberals lead 52-48 over the Greens, with Labor running third on the primary vote: Liberal 45% (52.% in 2016), Greens 29% (25.3%), Labor 18% (14.9%). Sample: 538.

Herbert (Labor 0.0%, Queensland): Dead heat on two-party preferred. Primary votes: Labor 31% (30.5% in 2016), LNP 32% (35.5%), Greens 5% (6.3%), One Nation 6% (13.5%), United Australia Party 9%. Sample not specified.

Gilmore (Liberal 0.7%, NSW): Labor leads 52-48. Primary votes: Labor 40% (39.2% in 2016), Liberal 26% (45.3%), Nationals 17% (didn’t run last time, hence the Liberal primary vote collapse), Greens 7% (10.5%), United Australia Party 2%. Sample not specified.

Dickson (LNP 1.7%, Queensland): LNP leads 51-49. Primary votes: LNP 41 (44.7% at 2016 election), Labor 35% (35.0%), Greens 10% (9.8%), United Australia Party 9%, One Nation 3%. Sample: 542.

Original post

The Guardian reports Essential Research has concluded its business for the campaign with a poll that reports a 51.5-48.5 lead for Labor, having decided to mark the occasion by reporting its results to the first decimal place. This compares with a rounded result of 52-48 last time. On the primary vote, the Coalition is on 38.5% (up, probably, from 38% last time), Labor is on 36.2% (up from 34%), the Greens are well down to 9.1% from an inflated-looking 12% last time, and One Nation are on 6.6% (down from 7%). Scott Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 42-31 to 39-32. The poll went to the effort to inquire about which campaign stories had registered with voters – I will be very interested to see the full numbers when Essential Research unloads its full report later today, but apparently Labor’s tax plans, the egging of Scott Morrison and the Daily Telegraph’s inspirational profile of Bill Shorten’s late mother all left an impression.

UPDATE: Full report from Essential Research here. It turns out respondents typed up their own responses on election news stories they had noticed and Essential has produced the results in word cloud form, which you can see in the release.

We can also expect national polls from Newspoll and Ipsos over the next day or two – and, starting at 10am this morning, the News Corp papers will today be treating us to an hourly schedule of YouGov Galaxy seat poll releases targeting (deep breath) Flynn at 10am; Macquarie at 11am; La Trobe at noon; Forde at 1pm; Reid at 2pm; Higgins at 3pm; Herbert at 4pm; Gilmore at 5pm; Deakin at 6pm; and Dickson in Queensland at 6pm. Except, it seems, the the Deakin poll is already with us, courtesy of today’s Herald Sun. It credits the Liberals with a lead of 51-49, or a 5.4% swing from the 2016 result. The primary votes are Liberal 44% (50.3% in 2016), Labor 37% (30.1%), Greens 9% (11.3%) and the United Australia Party 4%. The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday from a sample of 540.

Also:

• The Greens were hawking a poll on Monday conducted by Environmental Research and Counsel, an offshoot of Essential Media, suggesting Josh Frydenberg was in serious difficulty in Kooyong. The poll showed Frydenberg’s primary vote at 41%, slumping from 58% in 2016, with Greens candidate Julian Burnside on 21%, Labor’s Jana Stewart on 16%, and much-touted independent Oliver Yates lagging on 9%. However, Frydenberg maintained a two-party lead over the Greens of 52-48. Phillip Coorey in the Financial Review reported on Tuesday that the Liberals were more confident than that, believing Frydenberg’s primary vote to be at around 48%.

• Andrew Tillett in the Financial Review reported on Monday that Labor was becoming “increasingly bullish about picking up seats in Victoria and Western Australia”. Concerning the former, the report relates that Liberal strategists are “split on whether to pour resources into Higgins, where Liberal candidate Katie Allen is narrowly ahead, or concentrate on other Melbourne marginals such as La Trobe, Casey or Deakin”. As David Crowe of noted in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, the Coalition’s $4 billion East West Link motorway commitment was “seen by Labor as an attempt to hold the Liberal electorates of Casey, Deakin and La Trobe”, none of which it would be so high on its priorities list if it was feeling confident.

• A slightly different view of the situation in Western Australia is provided by Andrew Burrell of The Australian, who reports Labor has scaled back its ambitions in the state, which once ran to five seats. Swan is said to be Labor’s best chance of a gain, and Labor says its internal polling has Pearce at 50-50, but the Liberals claim to be slightly ahead. But Labor sources sound discouraged about Hasluck, and the party is no longer bothering with Canning. Stirling, however, is said to be “close”. Scott Morrison visited the state on Monday, paying special attention to Swan; Bill Shorten followed the next day, where he campaigned in Pearce.

Also today: Seat du jour, covering the Perth seat of Swan.

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.

1,601 comments on “Essential Research: 51.5-48.5 to Labor”

Comments Page 14 of 33
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  3. Jeez this Peter Brent bloke, does he just randomly spew out any crap which pops into his hed? How the hell do the Libs retain (notionally take) Corangamite in the face of what’s agreed by everyone to be going on in Victoria? Same with MacNamara.

    Are these two seats just sitting in a vacuum outside the rest of Victoria? If the LNP takes both those seats then they’ll have a 10 seat majority. It isn’t happening imho.

    Then again, Brent said Rudd would win in 2013.

  5. A very uninspiring performance by Morrison. Bluster and blather, talked perfect cliche, never answered a question that was actually asked and paid no respect to the journos in attendance.

  11. I’m not convinced the Rwandan thing will play out well for Labor. ‘Refugees = Labor incompetence etc’. could be a distraction deliberately leaked to take focus away from the cuts outlined in the Lib costings?

  14. Ante Meridian @ #627 Thursday, May 16th, 2019 – 11:24 am

    Dan Gulberry,

    “Bill Shorten and I danced all night.” I = nominative.

    “Our wives danced with Bill Shorten and me.” me = accusative.

    Adding our wives makes it a completely different sentence. Apples and oranges.

    Anyway, I think we can all see why non-English speakers, and even native English speakers have so much trouble with the language. 😉

  15. I predict Labor will win a majority, however it will be about 9-13 seats or so. Relatively narrow but quite workable, which will be helped by a sizable cross-bench of at least 6 MP’s, maybe significantly more than that. The bigger the cross-bench and the number of center to center-right Independents, the chances of a Liberal Party split goes up. Especially if in Opposition the Liberal Party goes even further to the right.

  17. If all the Regional seats and the marginals in QLD are 50/50 in Seat polls or swinging to Tories eg Herbert and the overall State swing since last election is about 4% to Labor does that mean that seats outside the “marginal” zone eg. Ryan, Wide Bay etc are 50/50 as well? Can’t have cake and eat it too.

  19. Disappointed that no one asked, Mr. Morrison, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?

  21. “Peter Brent has listed some of the seats that the Coalition can flip in the 3rd last para in the linked article below. (Cowan, Solomon, Corangamite, Macnamara, Herbert, Longman, Lindsay). I think a seat in TAS can also be added to the list.”

    Cool story bro.

    About as likely as Trump resigning tomorrow afternoon.

  23. I like the way they are sticking with the 80/20 split for Green prefs, but are happy to do a ‘bespoke’ 60/40 split for PUP.

    Green votes would have to be 90/10 this time (at a minimum) surely.

  25. Terminator,

    I doubt there’s any thinking going on for you.

    Possum is a bloke named Scott Steel who lives in Queensland and still posts under the name of Possum on Twitter. He’s still insightful too!

  28. What is Malcolm Turnbull going to say?

    Now his conversation with Trump is being referred to regarding the Rwandan affair?

  29. “Between Bill Shortan and I” does not work when reversed ie “Between I and Bill Shortan”.
    “Between Bill Shortan and me” does work if reveresed ie “Between me and Bill Shortan”

  30. @SenatorDoug
    46m46 minutes ago

    Morrison is insulting the intelligence of the Australian people at the press club. He says he’s going to invest in all the things @LiberalAus have spent six years cutting. Like apprentices – they promised 300,000, delivered 150,000 fewer than there was. Desperate, shonky ad man.

    But his fans are saying what a wonderful answer he has given “to young voters”, by promising to do all the things for which he has cut funds .

  31. Guy
    “I’m not convinced the Rwandan thing will play out well for Labor. ‘Refugees = Labor incompetence etc’. could be a distraction deliberately leaked to take focus away from the cuts outlined in the Lib costings?”

    With respect, I think you are over-thinking it. It is clearly bad for the Libs who have been hammering the character test thingo. Morrison’s facial expression changed to stern while Probyn was asking the question – not the usual smug look.

  32. Seat polls are rubbish but I actually find them fairly good for Labor. Primary is going up or holding steady.

    Also we know at state level LNP primary in Queensland drops yet this doesn’t show up in seat polls. Unlikely IMO. That %3 swing in state figures has to come from somewhere.

    In some marginals One Nation running split tickets and UAP preferences are speculative.

    If you also consider seat polls skew to Libs by around 1.5% on average it is looking rather encouraging.

  33. While it’s possible Peter Brents scenario could happen it is unlikely as it requires everything to go the Coalition’s way. Basing it on a handful of seat polls doesn’t assist. Keep in mind there is at least one seat where the poll moved substantially from Coalition ahead to Labor ahead – we don’t know which is the true position.

    It is better to look at the state breakdowns of national polls – such as what Bludgertrack does.

    The more worrying situation (for Labor) is the apparent herding of national polls, which could be masking an actual national move in the Coalition’s favour. Alternatively, it might be hiding a more substantial lead for Labor, or it might just coincidentally be hitting the right result every time. We won’t really know until we see the final polls and (really) the result.

    All we can say is what looks like the most likely outcome.

  34. The positive out of these seat polls (not that I believe the figs should be taken for gospel) but it gives the appearance of Labor momentum. That is what is important – voters on Sat who were sitting on the fence will often tip the way of the perceived winner.

  35. Lynchpin I just think anything to do with refugees seems to be able to be turned into a weapon against Labor somehow. I’m thinking something like ‘Bad people can get in so imagine how many bad people Labor will let in’ Not spun by the Libs directly of course but through their back channels

  36. The Rwandan thing requires almost zero thinking from ON and CLIVE voters. They will be horrified. Makes news polls pref allocation even more heroic

  38. So Turnbull said:
    “Basically, we are taking people from the previous administration that they were very keen on getting out of the United States. We will take more. We will take anyone that you want us to take.”

    Does that mean that beside the three (two currently in Australia) we know about, there could very well be many others?

  39. Looks as if there is still plenty of room for argument in this.

    One view:

    Again, Probyn and your trusted #ABCnews24 fails to mention that the Rwandan ‘accused’ refugees had no criminal case because their confessions were appropriated under torture. Garbage journalism that censors that information while it actively feeds into racist refugee hysteria

  40. I don’t even know what the Rwandan thing is let alone any genuine swinging voters… I think you people underestimate just how disengaged the majority of Australians are from political issues

  41. ltep

    I don’t think the Rwandan item will affect any swinging voters. It will just cement the opinions of rusted-ons.

  42. Lizzie that’s what I’m worried about. Anything that whips up racist hysteria invariably seems to play out badly for Labor

  43. Its all tea leaves readings but the seat polls look promisng.

    First I believe they have a conservative bias.
    Second they mostly seem to show big primary vote gains
    Third, if these are the best polls Murdoch can muster to instill a hung parliament narrative, I’d say the headline figure will not be helpful to them.

    Of course the headline figure will come out Friday night or Saturday morning with little fanfare.

  45. Itep. Voters will hear on tv that the libs let in two suspected murderers. It’s a pretty easy concept to swallow, and a visceral one

  47. I often wonder about swinging voters. What kind of mentality leaves you so unsure of your belief system as to have you flip flopping from one side to the other. These are not deep thinkers perhaps…

  49. Looks like we have a reverse Tampa. We decide who comes in; and we prefer murders to refugees.

    And I though it had wound down to a mind numbing grind.

  50. The Liberals look set to hold the critical Sydney seat of Reid, despite Labor hoping to win back the electorate in the face of the retirement of sitting MP Craig Laundy.

    An Exclusive YouGov/Galaxy poll has the Liberal party winning the costs with a 52/48 two party preferred result.

    It’s a tighter result than the 2016 election, when the Liberals won 54.7/45.3.

    Reid was a safe Labor electorate until 2013, and Labor hoped it could win the seat back with local MP Craig Laundy — a Malcolm Turnbull supporter — retiring.

    Liberal candidate Fiona Martin is polling with 44 per cent of the primary vote, while Labor’s Sam Crosby is polling at 36 per cent.

    The Greens are polling at 7 per cent and the United Australia Party 6 per cent.

    It represents a fall in the Liberals’ primary vote from 2016, when the party polled at 48.8 per cent, and Labor at 36.3.

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