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 23 of 33
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  1. Just on the Gilmore result, given Warren was with the ALP some time ago, is it possible that the punters just aren’t going to buy “you with the Liberals now” or vice versa.

    It wouldn’t make sense to me at all.

  2. I was sceptical of the Herbert preference flows, now I’m sceptical of the Gilmore ones the other way. Labor’s primary barely moves, they lose a chunk of prefs from the Greens, yet they gain more that 2% 2PP. How does that work? There can’t be that much leakage from Nats to Libs, surely?

  3. Reminiscences is how us newbies learn things. Please don’t stop.

    When I stumbled over this place in early 2014 I didn’t know what IPA was other than a good beer if done well and barely remembered Howard from when we left for the USA in 1993. After a couple or so snarky comments, when I inquired as to its ‘proper’ meaning, a stranger was kind enough to orient the jigsaw piece for me. I remember looking up “Poodle POO” once to see what everyone was talking about. I learned something different that day.

  10. I became involved in politics in the Rudd era, but I thing I read PB for a while before I dared post. Some posters could be very forceful -Frank, eg.

  11. [Larvatus Prodeo.]

    Oh yes, BB you’re quite right.

    I think that blog disappeared up its own arse of pomposity and faux intellectual self-importance!

  12. You’d have thought the Libs and Nats would have come up with a better arrangement around contesting seats where there is no incumbent. perhaps respecting party incumbency rather than candidate incumbency.

  13. Someone correct me but National preferences leak much more to Labor than Liberal preferences, right?

    If that’s the case and Libs finish second with the low primary result may be a clear win for ALP.

    I still think Green vote is understated in these seat polls because of inclusion of multiple minor parties.

  15. Overall, not a bad lot of polls for labor.

    I will take the labor vote holding up in Herbert as the standout.

    Cheers.

  16. lizzie says:

    RDN says he’s reached out to Shorten several times, but no response.

    Excellent work by RDN. Will help counter the Coalition line that Labor and the Greens will effectively be in ‘coalition’ post election. A scary thought for some 🙂

  17. Shane Wright

    Coalition’s costings solely a $1.5 billion cut in department savings. No details on where or depth by dept. #AusVotes2019

  18. Just found what I think was my first post here – during November 2007, to the effect that Rudd’s campaign would welcome Latham’s blessing (think that was a sarcastic spin on what was actually a condemnation, I can’t recall?).

    But that Rudd should drop the wonk-speak if he wanted to capitalise on Howard looking out of touch!

    Then there was a post from the following year to the effect that Turnbull was not good shadow-treasurer material. Haha!

  20. [Overall, not a bad lot of polls for labor.

    I will take the labor vote holding up in Herbert as the standout.

    Cheers.]

    Very much so – and given how much Labor has been underestimated in all recent seat polls (see 2016 election; 2018 by-elections) – I think we can be more than quietly confident now.

    The Libs pathway to majority remains very remote.

  21. Onebobsworth
    Wasn’t there a LNP candidate in Longman who , in an “oversight”, got some details wrong in his military records, which was revealed by the media a few days from the actual poll? I may have the wrong electorate,but I’m pretty sure it was Longman. I doubt that was the reason for the result, but it may have contributed somewhat. I wonder if these Newspoll seat findings, even if they are reasonbly accurate, will have much impact with such high prepolling. Would people who have already voted not bother to take part in this latest survey?

    —-

    That would be interesting if that was the case. Wrong polling could come down to late changes in the electorate and the poll been taken to far away from election day. There could be bias but would be hard to assume that every poll will be wrong the same way

  22. By world standards, if you compare him with Macron, Merkel, Ardern, Trudeau etc., Scrott Morriscum is completely out of his depth.
    He wouldn’t exude the gravitas worthy of a prime minister on the world stage.
    My dad said that he couldn’t stand Julie Bishop as a foreign minister. She wasn’t up to the standard of Gareth Evans, Bob Carr, Kevin Rudd or even Alexander Downer. The only reason why she was respected was that the rest of the cabinet were infinitely worse.

  25. I would be cautious about the TPP for Gilmore. The party vote adds to 92% meaning it is likely the former Liberal candidate who is “independent” received 8%.
    I imagine that 8% was allocated 50/50 but I suspect his supporters would be more likely to preference the Nats or Libs.

  28. I’ve been mostly lurking but infrequently posting here since about early 2009 I think. My first PB memmories though were the Labor Green wars that broke out during the CPRS debate late that year. Remember Bob1234? A South Australian poster and strong Greens supporter I think.

  29. Was Gilmore even in contention?

    If Gilmore goes, wouldn’t it be funny, if the election was lost by one seat, that it was due to yet another ScoMo captain’s call?

    “He’s not really a team player.”

  31. journalists are all saying Labor win.

    Mark Kenny says Greens to win Higgins.

    Karvelas was honest and said on predictions she likes to sit on the fence

  32. Oh now we REALLY see they have no f**kin idea.
    The big reveal on where the money is coming from….efficiency dividends!
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/16/coalition-plans-fresh-15bn-public-service-cuts-to-fund-election-promises

    Seriously, as anyone who has been anywhere near the public sector knows, ‘efficiency dividends’ are officially known as ‘we have no f*** clue where the money is coming from, so we will just tell the public servants to ‘just do it’ , and they can get crucified at Estimates for the loss of services.’

    This is just government as perfected by Caspar Jonquil: ‘They asked me where the money was coming from and I said “Oh, nothing to do with me!”

  33. Mark Kenny just said the most sensible thing any commentator has said during this campaign: “the danger is that there is too much information that isn’t anchored to anything”

  34. We had “famous people” posting back in the day 🙂
    .
    Antony Green says:
    Friday, July 4, 2008 at 12:40 pm
    I’m with Steve Stewart J. Any process carried out as an adminstrative task can be reviewed in the courts to see whether the decision made by the official conformed with the law. That is what the Court of Disputed Returns has done here, ………………….
    https://www.pollbludger.net/2008/07/02/frans-our-man/

  35. Scott Morrison today gave a master class in the critical skill he has absorbed over the past five weeks of non-stop, energy sapping campaigning.

    How not to answer questions. Because responding to them fully might betray a possibility of change, the great sin the Liberals argue should be pinned on the ALP and one Labor warmly accepts.

    Non-answers might be excusably routine for some politicians, but the Liberal leader began his address to the National Press Club by congratulating himself on being accountable 48 hours out from polling day. Except he wasn’t accountable.

    It was an address and subsequent question-and-answer period without a salute to his Liberal Party — the organisation that put him in Parliament and The Lodge — and with no list of achievements, and no specific promise of them.

    And few coherent answers. Mr Morrison has learned it is safer to answer the question he wants asked, not the one actually tossed at him by reporters.

    So today he was asked about Malcolm Turnbull and spoke at length about Greg Hunt; he was asked about wage growth and gave a mini lecture on Labor’s housing policy; he responded to an inquiry about pensions with an attack on Labor’s policy on the dole; he deflected two questions about how Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton allowing accused murderers in as refugees by simply not offering any direct answer and praising intelligence agencies.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/scomo-delivers-master-class-in-dodging-the-question-in-press-club-address/news-story/ab27bd97947fb95e6efdac1a05633b58

  37. With the disunity and, let’s be honest anger, on the conservative side in Gilmore, I reckon they could have underestimated the preference leakage to Labor.
    Mundine was a ridiculous choice.
    Morrison should have just accepted that Sudmalis was a strong contender for worst local member in Australia, had little respect or support left from locals of any persuasion and it made sense to oust her.
    Given that she and Jo Gash are both working for the Nats in Gilmore now, how likely do you think they will be to persuade Nat preferences back to Mundine? Gash still has plenty of support on that side of politics in Gilmore (though why always stumped me).

  39. Itep,

    No conspiracy at all re the polls.

    They are what they are. A selective set of seat polling.

    Overall, I think not too bad for labor. Not one poll ( I think ) with labor PV on the downside.

    Cheers.

  40. I have been lurking and posting occasionally for about 5 years and found the site accidently when looking for poll results and still the best for that. I have found it fascinating to look at how the mind of the left works particularly the full Loon mind but I can not stay to long to study to much into the dark arts of the left, I know what happened to Saruman the white he started to serve the dark lord.

  41. guytaur says:
    Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 4:54 pm
    journalists are all saying Labor win.

    Mark Kenny says Greens to win Higgin

    ————————————-

    More seats the libs/nats lose , the better it is

  43. Averaged out over the 9 seat polls reported, there is a swing to the ALP of 2.1%, if my maths is right. Which is in line with what the national polls and bludgertrack are saying. Which makes the seat polls maybe plausible? This is what a 2% swing to the ALP is likely to look like! At least now there is one seat we can be confident will flip, namely Gilmore, so that makes me feel a bit better! Mundine was always going to be a disaster.

  45. What was that other, Economics mainly, blog that was big back in the day that had an Armadillo as its mascot? I think John Quiggin started it.

  46. Doyley, there is one where it’s down by less than a % but I think we can deal with that. It’ll be an interesting Saturday night!

  49. Steelydan@4:11pm
    According to WB, Palmer preferences in 2013 were split 54-46 in LNP favour. So if the preferences are as above during ALP worst election, why will it be 60-40 now?
    Also, do you really believe Palmer is 6%PV in Reid? THen I have bridge to sell

  50. In relation to Gilmore, the independent, Schultz, is not directing preferences either way last I heard. People down here not reacting well to Lib selection of candidate.

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