More coronavirus polling, more Eden-Monaro by-election wash-up

More evidence that Australians are heartily satisfied by the approaches taken by their governments in tackling COVID-19, even in Victoria, plus some concluding book-keeping from Eden-Monaro.

When too much of the above is barely enough:

• The Australian Electoral Commission has published preference flow data from the July 4 Eden-Monaro by-election, showing exactly how many of each candidate’s preferences ended up with Labor and Liberal. Of the 6.34% Nationals vote, 77.73% went to Liberal and 22.27% went to Labor, compared with an unusually polarised 87.16% and 12.84% in 2019, and 55.98% of preferences from the 5.34% Shooters Fishers and Farmers vote went to Labor and 44.02% to Liberal, after the party directed preferences to Labor on its how-to-vote cards. More on this from Kevin Bonham.

• Roy Morgan has published an SMS poll conducted in Victoria, which finds strong support for the state’s lockdown measures: 89-11 in favour of compulsory face masks, 76-24 against reopening schools and day care centres to all, 71-29 against relaxing the 5km travel restriction, 75-25 against allowing table service at pubs, restaurants and cafes, and 72-28 against lifting the curfew. The closest result to dissent was a relatively narrow 57-43 against allowing visits to immediate family members, currently allowed only for delivering care or essential services. The poll was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday from a sample of 2110.

• A Pew Research Centre survey global survey finds 94% of Australian respondents believing their country had done a good job of handling COVID-19 compared with 6% for bad, a shade behind Denmark as the best result out of 14 countries. The only two countries that failed to crack 50% positive ratings were the United States and United Kingdom, at 47% and 46% respectively. Australia’s performance on the question of whether the country was now more united than before the outbreak was more modest, at 54% for more united and 40% for more divided, compared with a 14-nation median of 46% and 48%. The United States was a serious outler at 18% for more united and 77% for more united. The Australian component was conducted by telephone from June 11 to July 25 from a sample of 1016.

• The West Australian reports that WA Liberal Party state director Sam Calabrese will not contest the preselection to fill Mathias Cormann’s Senate vacancy, after earlier being considered the front-runner. The list of prospective nominees now seems to consist of Joe Francis, a Barnett government minister who lost his seat of Jandakot in the 2017 state election landslide; Sherry Sufi, arch-conservative party policy committee chairman; and Julian Ambrose, a director at construction company BGC and the stepson of its late founder, Len Buckeridge.

• My coverage of the Northern Territory election count contains with daily updates and live results reporting here. Labor has 13 confirmed wins out of 25 and leads over the CLP in another two; the CLP with six confirmed wins and leads over Labor in one; and the Territory Alliance with a lead over CLP in another.

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.

1,001 comments on “More coronavirus polling, more Eden-Monaro by-election wash-up”

Comments Page 15 of 21
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  1. This is a very good article indeed about Trump’s White Supremacist speechwriter, Stephen Miller and the way he weaponises words for Trump and their cause:

    Over the past week, the Republican National Convention sought to conjure a “radical left” hellscape.

    Speakers conflated anti-racist protesters with deranged criminals out to destroy the country. Donald Trump Jr. called Joe Biden “the Loch Ness monster,” while the conservative activist Charlie Kirk praised Donald Trump as “the bodyguard of Western civilization.” In his speech on Thursday, the president denounced “mob rule.” “Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators, and criminals who threaten our citizens,” he said.

    The language at the convention comes from the “white genocide” conspiracy theory, which warns, among other things, that brown and Black people will destroy white civilization with the help of their anti-racist allies. It echoed that of the racist-dystopian novel “The Camp of the Saints,” which Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s senior policy adviser and speechwriter, promoted in 2015 through the right-wing website Breitbart.

    The book, by the French author Jean Raspail, characterizes “anti-racists” as an apocalyptic “mob” of “agitators” and “anarchists,” and depicts the destruction of the white world by brown refugees described as “monsters,” “beasts” and “toiling ants teeming for the white man’s comfort.” He wrote of a world where “anti-racists” are “servants of the beast” tainted by the “milk of human kindness.” Empathy and interracial ally-ship are associated with primitive bodily functions.

    Language is a tool for shaping minds, and Mr. Miller knows how to weaponize it. It’s why he draws from books like Mr. Raspail’s to shape rhetoric.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/opinion/stephen-millers-dystopian-america.html

  2. poroti @ #699 Sunday, August 30th, 2020 – 9:01 am

    ItzaDream

    ……societal breakdown which has Biden as its root cause, and will explode into western civilisation collapse……….

    Looking at the DNC speakers and what Fox News has been banging on about that is pretty much his central plank. The current round of protests may well be ‘manna from heaven’ for the Trump campaign. The perfect backdrop for the selling of such a message.

    especially the likes of the Rand Paul episode

  3. The current round of protests may well be ‘manna from heaven’ for the Trump campaign. The perfect backdrop for the selling of such a message.

    As Rick Wilson says, if the election is a referendum on Trump, he will lose.

    If the election is a referendum on violent protests in the streets, Trump will win.

  4. In news that will surprise no one.
    Trump has now cancelled election security briefings to the committee. Apparently reason is due to leak. Which of course is crapola.

  5. Vic:

    Yep, briefings will now only be written.

    How many Republicans in congress will speak out publicly to criticise this?

  6. Confessuons

    The problem for Trump is the violence instigated by white people revealed. The protestors themselves are peaceful.

    Plus never forget there have been polls showing the majority of Americans back saving lives over property damage.

    Trump made that bet when he did the Lafayette Square thing.

    Trump loses with an angry Black population motivated to go to the polls. The protests are in every way a referendum on Trump.

    It will only be if Black people are proved to plan and instigate violence that it becomes a referendum on protests. The land of the Free has the right to protest as the foundation stone of their republic. It’s why Free Speech is the First Amendment.

  8. It does look like Trump is amazingly narrowing the gap with Biden. It looks like Trump has closed about 2 points in the last 6-8 weeks when he sacked his campaign manager.

    Nationally the lead is about 7 points to Biden and in the battleground states it’s now about 3 points to Biden.

    The predictit odds give Biden a 55% chance of winning and 538 gives Trump a 31 in 100 chance of winning (up about 4 in the last week).

    I think the debates will be decisive – people want to throw Trump out but Biden needs to seal the deal in the debates a la Reagan 1980. Covid also is a wildcard.

    William do you still think Trump will overtake Biden in the electoral college in March?

  10. Fess

    The USA is descending into a dystopian shit show.

    What are the US citizens going to bloody do?
    Vote this excrement out is my bloody hope

  12. The windy season has arrived here in Melbourne town. The other day was terrible for its destructive damage. Let’s hope today is not so bad. Sigh……..

  13. Kyle Griffin
    @kylegriffin1
    “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it’ll no longer be briefing on election security issues.”
    Top intelligence office informs congressional committees it’ll no longer brief on election security
    The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it’ll no longer be briefing on election security issues, a senior admini…
    cnn.com

  14. Vic:

    It’s entirely possible Trump wins with an even larger popular vote loss than he had in 2016. Imagine what that would do to the already heightened tensions in the country!

  15. Victoria

    It’s an election that will be decided on who gets people motivated to vote most.

    Remember when Biden gained from four to ten points in front.
    That was the height of the reaction to George Floyd’s death.

    Jacob Blake being shot in the back has reignited exactly the same political forces.
    That’s not good news for Trump.

  17. Fess/guytaur

    Trump has been building up to this being a law and order election with race war at its base.
    It’s getting to a very dangerous inflection point.
    Sigh

  18. Idiots of America, rise up:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/29/demexit-peoples-convention-leftwing-alternative-democrats-republicans

    It should go without saying that in ‘a first past the post – winner takes all electoral system’ the extreme left isolating themselves in a ‘people’s movement’ without any people other than the usual camp followers guarantees that both parties that can form a government will actually shift to the right, because the political centre is recast.

    Of course this is exactly the kind of political gizmo that attracts the ilk of Firefox and Greentaur to get their obscurantist freak on …

  19. CNN
    @CNN
    · 14h
    Children can carry coronavirus in their noses and throats for weeks even if they don’t show any symptoms, which might explain how the virus can spread silently, researchers in South Korea reported https://cnn.it/2QxeAQg

  20. I like the angle Albanese is taking: Scotty is master of the photo-op announcement, but there’s no follow-up afterwards. Fits perfectly with the #ScottyfromMarketing tag.

  21. Victoria

    Yes. In fact that build up includes claiming any Trump loss is due to voter fraud.

    It’s as William said a few months ago a powder keg just waiting for a match.

    It says a lot about the decency and restraint of the Black community in the US that has not happened yet.

  27. Andrew Earlwood

    How did your predicted Labor win of NSW Labor go?

    How did your prediction of Abbott being too extreme to become Prime Minister go?

    Stop trying to paint mainstream comment by me as extremist.
    Firefox speaks for himself.

  28. guytaur
    Trump has actually implemented a couple of good criminal justice reforms. Reforms that will be of greatest benefit to African Americans. Under ‘Bubba’ Clinton some shocking crime and welfare ‘reforms’ that had a disproportionately harsh effect on African Americans was enacted. Biden would of supported them back in the day. Whatever he proposes for his presidency should he win there will be a lot of footage to throw at him as a counter.

  29. When you see the lavish lifestyles of the owners of Aged Care homes and see the amount of rent they pay to the churches, you just know that there is money that can be found to improve standards in Aged Care homes.

  31. If Morrison and co had done their job and managed returned travellers and put them in purpose controlled quarantine facilities,
    We would not be in lockdown here in Victoria.

    Morrison, Dutton and co have failed miserably.

  34. Poroti

    Yes. That’s why the protests are so detrimental to Trump. It gives Biden room to move away from the past and move back to embracing the civil rights Democrat era.

  35. Barney ITB

    That is the job of the govt to make it happen.
    We are a first world country and setting up a purpose fit facility is not too difficult.
    Cheaper than what it is costing us now.

  38. Victoria
    Apologist ? Do you actually know about those changes made by Trump ? Are you even aware they existed ? Or the ones made under Clinton ?

  40. Victoria @ #735 Sunday, August 30th, 2020 – 7:39 am

    Barney ITB

    That is the job of the govt to make it happen.
    We are a first world country and setting up a purpose fit facility is not too difficult.
    Cheaper than what it is costing us now.

    Right,

    Facilities to house potentially 1,000s of people will just appear.

    Now that would be a miracle! 😆

  41. The feds really have dropped the ball on aged care. That there is still confusion on the ground as Murphy says is simply an abrogation of responsibility on behalf of Morrison and Colbeck given how far we are into the pandemic.

  42. Poroti

    Yes I am. I follow it very closely.
    Trump has been stoking the race war from the get go.
    Do you remember Charlottsville? Do you know he had the gun waving couple speak at the convention.

    Seriously bringing up bubba as some sort of equivilance now, tells me what I need to know

  44. Aged Care audits need to be done by an organization similar to WorkSafe in attitude and powers. Rather than the tick a box ISO9000 auditors we have now who will raise “opportunities for improvement “

  47. Nikki Sava actually speaking sense.

    The stats Speers put up re where people apportion blame ie Providers, then State Governments then the Feds is a sad indictment on how people do not look beyond the headline in the Herald Sun or Daily Telegraph.

    The issues are systemic it is not just the fault of providers

  48. Victoria

    Trying to gag people and push them into a corner instead of honestly acknowledging past mistakes that can be taken advantage of by the opposition is very authoritarian thinking.

    Biden has acknowledged those mistakes. He even had the grace to appoint Kamala Harris after one such attack.

    Covering up reality does nothing to help the Democrats win by trying to claim false equivalence

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