Prahran
| Projected 3CP | Projected 2CP | Win Probability |
Werribee
| Projected 3CP | Projected 2CP | Win Probability |
Live commentary
Saturday
I believe the counts are now complete, with various loose ends being tied up in both seats. These cut six votes from the Liberal lead in Prahran, which ends at 16,352 to 15,363, a margin of 989.
Thursday
7pm. New postals now added for Prahran, breaking 773-732 in favour of Liberal, increasing their lead from 954 to 995.
4pm. Finally an update from Werribee (though not Prahran), and my system is calling it for Labor. This is due to the addition of 2310 postal votes, of which the formal ones have broken 1191-1039 to Labor, in keeping with the tendency for Labor to do better on late-arriving postal votes. Rechecked totals have been added on the primary vote count, but the VEC does not do rechecking on the TCP count. These will make a few dozen votes’ difference in favour of the Liberals, but not nearly enough to disturb a published Labor lead of 593 votes, out from 441 on election night, with at most 1500 still to come.
Tuesday night
It seems we won’t be seeing further updates to the count until later in the week.
Monday night
It is apparently the case that a check count of the primary vote at least commenced today, but no updates have appeared for the published results. The uncovering of errors might tilt the balance one way or another in Werribee, but otherwise the matter will be decided by perhaps 3000 postal votes that will trickle in over the coming week.
Saturday night
2.00am. Having updated the system with estimates of the number of outstanding votes (which make a generous guess of postals in the absence of any hard data I can find), my system is calling Prahran for the Liberals and giving Labor an 84.5% chance in Werribee. In Werribee, the Liberals will need to improve on the 53-47 break in the favour on postals counted so far to close a gap of 441 votes, which is certainly possible if there are indeed enough votes outstanding; in Prahran, postals can only extend a current Liberal lead of 954 votes.
1.00am. The remaining pre-poll centre in Werribee finally came through with its TCP result, producing what one assumes is the final result for the night: Labor 20,132, Liberal 19,691.
12.13am. Correction: one of the two Werribee pre-poll centres hasn’t reported its TCP result.
11.34pm. A good night for the Liberals got better with the addition of the second batch of Werribee pre-polls, which sliced Labor’s lead on the raw vote from 3.0% to 0.6% — and my projection is the same. So the question now is whether the Liberals can wear a 446 vote deficit on postals, making it very much too close to call.
11.25pm. I’m unclear if we’re actually going to see the outstanding pre-poll TCP count added for Werribee this evening. My system’s earlier call of the seat for Labor, which I was very uncomfortable about, turns out to be based on an underestimate in the number of outstanding votes, and has been retracted now that I’ve added new (and very rough) estimates.
10.50pm. A second batch of pre-polls have been added for Werribee on the primary vote and my system is calling it for Labor again, but I’m not at all confident about that. What we have is a huge mismatch between the pre-poll primary vote count (21854 formal votes) and the TCP count (50 formal votes), which means more than half the projection is based on an estimate of preference flows that may prove awry.
10.19pm. A second batch of pre-poll TCPs slightly improved the Greens’ position in Prahran, though they’re still behind. That may be it for the evening — the Greens are nearly 1000 vote behind, which isn’t the kind of lead that normally gets chased down in late counting, particularly by the Greens in a situation where there won’t be absent votes. Nothing substantial in the latest Werribee update, apart from the last remaining booth TCP result. Now that it’s clear pre-polls are indeed being reported in batches, I more strongly suspect that we haven’t seen the last of the count for the evening in Werribee.
10.04pm. A batch of pre-polls — fewer than I expected, so there may be more to come — have been added on the primary vote for Werribee. They are not great for Labor — around 3% worse on two-party terms than the election day votes. That’s relative to the total result of pre-polls last time though, and it may be that we’re getting one batch from one part of the electorate and a later batch will be different, which my system isn’t built to factor it. The Liberals have pulled further ahead in Prahran, again because of a TCP result — this time for pre-polls — where they did better on preferences than on election day votes. It looks like the ABC has turned off booth-matching, but whether off projected or raw results, it looks much the same, namely bleak for the Greens.
10.02pm. It turns out to have been the postal TCP count: the Greens did well enough relatively speaking on the primary vote and then did very badly on the preference flow, resulting in a 17.9% LIB swing. They may at least hope that later arriving postals will behave differently.
9.51pm. I remain unsure as to what cause the Liberal landslip in Prahran — the latest update has moderated it slightly, but the Liberals are still ahead.
9.40pm. Things have suddenly slipped dramatically in the Liberals’ favour in Prahran: both my system and the ABC’s went from having the Greens ahead to Liberal ahead. I’ve arbitrarily widened my error margins in both seats. To repeat yet again, Labor’s narrow lead in Werribee could very easily be wiped out by pre-polls.
9.26pm. If you’re enjoying the coverage, please consider a donation through the “become a supporter” buttons at the top of the page and the bottom of the post.
9.20pm. Labor has strengthened a little in Werribee on my projection with the latest update, but not so much as to change my basic outlook that everything depends on a looming dump of pre-polls, which renders the 90% or so Labor win probability excessive. I will look at tweaking my model so it’s more cautious until substantial numbers of pre-polls are added. That’s not an issue in Prahran, where the pre-polls have been reported: lots of new TCP numbers in the latest update do not change by projection of an 8% to 9% swing from Greens to Liberal, which is about 4% below what the Liberals need.
9.05pm. Not sure exactly why, but the latest update from Werribee not good for Labor: their win probability now wound back to 76.7%. Still no pre-polls. Whereas there is a big whack of pre-polls in Prahran, accounting for nearly half the vote counted, and they have hardly behaved differently from election day votes, suggesting the Greens are indeed looking good.
8.58pm. There were 15,895 pre-polls added late on the night of the Mulgrave by-election count, which is presumably a rough pointer of what to expect here — more so though in Werribee’s case than Prahran’s.
8.45pm. I’ve forced through real world preference flows to my Werribee projection, and a little to my surprise, it’s calling the seat for Labor — which would be because it goes off lower error margins when it stops using preference flows. But I would want to see some serious pre-poll numbers first.
8.39pm. No new results in the latest update for Prahran, but we’ve got a second TCP from Werribee plus most of the primary vote booth results. That’s still not enough TCP for my system to switch out of using my preference estimates. Based on how Paul Hopper’s preferences flowed in 2022, I’ve tweaked his flow slightly in favour of the Liberals, and should probably tweak them a bit more. If my system was going off the preference flows indicated by the TCP count, Labor would be projected with a 1.4% lead. As it stands, my system says 2.6%. I suspect the former will be nearer the mark.
8.20pm. A huge infusion of primary votes in Prahran, six out of nine booths in all, and my system is all but calling it for the Greens. But: there’s still practically no TCP count, and if I’m wrong about preferences, I may be overestimating them. Count progress similar in Werribee: lot of primary votes now, very few TCPs, speculative preference estimates looming large in a projection that has tightened up.
8.14pm. A lot in Prahran depends on preferences for Tony Lupton, who I’m projecting at a bit over 10%. His how-to-vote card has the Liberals ahead of the Greens, but I’m punting on a lot of people not following it and splitting his vote 50-50. We’ll have a better idea how right I am about that when we see some substantial TCP numbers at the count, at which point my system will drop pre-determined preference estimates and calculate their actual flow.
8.05pm. First booth in from Prahran, plus a tiny parcel of pre-poll votes. I think the latter are distorting my projections: they show it as close, but the booth is quite large and suggests a Liberal swing of only about 3%. Four booths in now from Werribee, and my system is now leaning to Labor, suggesting an insufficient Liberal swing of 7.1%. However, I’m projecting neither major party to clear 30% on the primary vote, so I can’t be ruled out that a minor candidate can sneak through the middle. Independent Paul Hopper best placed, but my feeling is that the number of Greens and Victorian Socialists votes going straight to Labor will make it hard for him.
7.50pm. Relief for Labor as the second booth in from Werribee, Riverbend, swings a lot more gently than the first. Labor’s primary vote has plunged, but a remarkable share of it has gone to Victorian Socialists. I’m projecting a very slight Labor lead, but that leans heavily on preference estimates. Still nothing from Werribee.
7.35pm. The latest update brings the TCP result from Little River, which the Liberals won 177-117 after losing 156-122 last time.
7.18pm. Nothing new in the regular 15 minute update. When I referred earlier to “the absence of small rural booths”, I guess I should have said “except Little River”.
7.03pm. The first booth in from Werribee is Little River, with what I record to be a 13.5% two-party swing, which would be enough for the Liberals to win. Notes of caution though: only 294 votes, and a booth uncharacteristic of the electorate.
6.16pm. No surprise that the latest results update brings no figures, but the time stamps on my results pages have successfully updated, which is reassuring.
6pm. Polls have closed. History suggests the Victorian Electoral Commission will update the results feed at precise 15 minute intervals. Given the huge fields of candidates in both seats, and the absence of small rural booths, there could be quite a wait — in similar circumstances at the Mulgrave by-election, the first update with actual results was at 7:30pm.
Preview
Today is the day of Victoria’s eagerly awaited Werribee and Prahran by-elections, which between them offer an opportunity to gauge whether Labor is doing quite as badly in the outer suburban mortgage belt as recent polls have suggested, and how the Greens are holding up in their inner Melbourne heartland after a disappointing result at the Queensland election in October. As is hopefully apparent immediately above, this site will be running live results and projections using its innovative three-candidate prediction model, though as will be explained below, these will very likely be two-candidate contests.
As is so often the case in Victoria these days, both have attracted bloated fields of candidates, but Werribee appears a straightforward two-horse race that will be defined by the precise scale of the inevitable swing from Labor to Liberal. The former is defending a margin of 10.5%, which is less than the swing indicated by the remarkable recent poll result from Resolve Strategic. Ronald Mizen of the Financial Review reported last week that “internal Labor polling suggests it could be as close as 48-52 in favour of the government”, which would come as a substantial relief to it if borne out. For their part, the Liberals are managing expectations, with Chip Le Grand of The Age relating a view that the party missed an opportunity to engage the seat’s substantial Indian population by preselecting 63-year-old real estate agent Steve Murphy. Liberal sources cited in the Financial Review hopefully offered if if Murphy can manage a 5% swing, “the seat could be within reach next year” — a notion rightly debunked by Kevin Bonham.
I’m not aware of any hard intelligence of what’s likely to transpire in Prahran, where the Greens are defending a formidable 12.3% margin against the Liberals in a contest forfeited by Labor. A fair bit has been made of the fact that the seat’s last Labor member, Tony Lupton, who held it from 2002 to 2010, is running as a candidate and directing preferences to the Liberals ahead of the “toxic” Greens. While Lupton’s name recognition is unlikely to amount to much fourteen years after he ceased to represent a rapidly changing electorate, he can hardly fail to gain at least some traction in his appeal to homeless Labor voters. The extent to which they follow his how-to-vote card is another matter.
Updated Results for Werribee at 15.05 Thursday –
Lister (ALP) – 21323
Murphy (Lib) -20730
All over bar the shouting I would say. Labor has done better on the remaining postal votes than the earlier ones.
2230 more postals counted today for Werribee and John Lister’s lead increased from 441 to 593 votes so I think that pretty much seals a Labor retain now.
Around 1500 postal votes issued that are yet to be returned but with the deadline tomorrow, only a few hundred of them (max) are likely to be received.
@B.S.Fairman – I remember in most previous elections too that the later postals generally don’t skew as strongly conservative as the early ones do.
My guess is that earlier postals are people who habitually place a postal vote (older people); later postals probably include more people who realise they are going to be away, so will have a bit more of an ‘absent’ vote dynamic added into the mix.
Update added.
Good win for the ALP in Werribee & good win for the Libs in Prahran.
Looks like the VEC was reading this website ha.
All up, 18 posters selected the ALP to retain Werribee and 4 for the Libs to gain Prahran.
Any Fed extrapolations with Prahran onto Macnamara?
Nads – Any get the Quinella?
I think Prahran just shows that Labor voters do not not “naturally” translate into Green votes if there is not Labor candidate. This is seen at every byelection where Labor has not run – for example 2025 Warrandyte by-election saw the Liberal get 71% TCP in the byelection versus 55% at the 2024 State election. It just happens to be the first byelection where the Greens were defending a seat as opposed to contesting a LNP held one.
There is only a partial overlap of Macnamara and Prahran – mostly Windsor and St Kilda East. The booths in these areas had smaller swings than the seat overall.
Admittedly the more observant members of the Jewish faith would not have been voting on the Saturday. But Macnamara is also not quite as Jewish as people think – about 10% of total population but probably higher in terms of the voting population (as it is older than the general population).
@B.S.Fairman – I agree and one of my concerns from the start was that it’s one thing for a Labor voter to happily preference the Greens above the Liberals, but given a choice between Greens & Liberals without any prospect of Labor actually competing or winning is a different story and those preferences will likely flow a bit more evenly.
As it turns out, based on the reported preference flows specifically from Tony Lupton, all the rest of the “Other” vote (minus Lupton) flowed around 55-45 in the Greens’ favour. And that included Nathan Chisholm, who had the 4th highest primary vote, and a donkey vote that flowed to the Liberals.
This is roughly what I would have expected, from an “Other” base that was made up of a significant cohort of usual Labor voters, I expected that maybe preferences would flow in that 55-60 range (which I am guessing if you remove Chisholm’s donkey vote it would have been right in the middle of).
But Tony Lupton’s preferences flowed 70-30 to the Liberals. I think a number of factors influenced that. The biggest being his HTVC. I think given his biggest vote type was ‘Early’ votes (15.6%) where there were only 2 booths and he was personally handing out, that would have increased the HTVC adherence a bit. So that card was probably the difference between at least a 55-45 and 70-30 preference flow (both to the Libs), and that alone would have flipped the result.
Then on top of that, Lupton’s voting base seemed quite old (often the most hostile to Greens) whereas younger Labor voters probably put other INDs first, which resulted in the other INDs having better preference flows to the Greens too.
And of course Lupton’s very aggressive anti-Greens campaign meant he probably scared off a lot of Labor voters who aren’t hostile to the Greens, and his support skewed more to people who favour the Liberals anyway.
But it was interesting to note that the non-Lupton “Other” vote did actually favour the Greens.
BSF – quinella. Surprisingly no.
I picked a narrow Labor win in one and a narrow Green one in the other, so I got one out of two right.
Congrats to the winning Labor candidate, who came across to me as well spoken and intelligent.
State Labor got a warning last Saturday, they’ll need to spend a lot more on services in the Western part of Melbourne.
Macnamara is quite interesting.
Last election primaries:
* ALP 32%
* GRN 30%
* LIB 29%
The most recent poll we have is this from Redbridge dated June-2024
* ALP 30%
* GRN 21%
* LIB 36%
Link: https://redbridgegroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/RedBridge-report-Macnamara-seat-poll-June-2024.pdf
I accept the sample is 400, and the poll is 8 months old. I appreciate most posters will run straight to the shredder with this sort of poll data. However…
* I think most of us are in agreement that the ALP Fed vote in Mac will fall below the Greens.
* So this division is looking like a Grn v Lib 2PP re-match… federally.
* Will depend on where ALP preferences flow.
* ALP voters were reasonably disciplined on Saturday with their preferences from Lupton.
* Unlikely, but still a remote possibility, that Josh Burns will direct his preferences to the Libs ahead of the Greens. If he get’s the backing of someone like Bracks again, this seat will get v interesting.
* Still requires the Libs to increase their primary to around the 37-39% mark.
* According to Redbridge above, they’re not that far off.
A Federal Division to be watched closely.
@nadia88, I don’t think the Prahran result really changes my thoughts on Macnamara at all.
Macnamara’s result really hinges on one thing: the Labor vote. There are only 594 votes between Labor & Greens and the order of those two determines who wins the seat.
I think it’s safe to say there will be a swing to the Liberals in Macnamara for a number of reasons, so they will remain first in the 3CP count but they can’t actually win (only a +5 primary vote swing in Prahran, under very favourable circumstances, reinforces that), which means it will come down to whoever finishes higher out of Labor & Greens.
But in the absence of a Labor candidate, there’s really no way to know how well the Labor vote held up. It’s safe to say both Labor & Greens will cop a negative swing, but who has a larger one? Hard to tell.
An encouraging sign for the Greens is that their primary vote held up best around St Kilda (+6.4% primary vote swing) which overlaps with Macnamara. Where their vote didn’t hold up well was in the suburbs that overlap with Melbourne & Kooyong. So that’s a sign that their vote might hold up relatively well in Macnamara.
So basically my prediction for Macnamara remains roughly the same:
– Tipping a swing to the Liberals in the 5-6% range (byelection reinforced that);
– Tipping swings against both Labor & Greens (byelection reinforced that);
– Tipping a bigger swing against Labor than against Greens (byelection provided no useful data for this other than the Greens vote seemed to hold up around St Kilda)
Therefore my prediction of the Greens narrowly knocking Labor of the 2CP and winning remains the same, but it could easily go either way and the 3CP race will be extremely close.
Labor HQ won’t allow any HTVC that risks giving an additional seat to the Liberals in an election where a hung parliament is the most likely outcome. An MP that neither side want to work with is better than adding a seat to the Coalition column.
The reality is in 21 months time, in November 2026, Prahran is highly likely to revert to being a Green held seat.
Too much crying has been done over Lupton’s campaign. He stood as independent. He was last the MP in 2010 which means a massive chunk of the electorate weren’t in the seat when he was the MP. He is 64 which basically means he is not going to a Labor candidate in the future.
The Greens candidate had stood in multiple seats before and an issue was made of this. Although this fairly normal, the risk is there an issue can be made of it. It wouldn’t have mattered as much if it was a general election, but in a by-election the focus is on the one candidate. However, Di Callamo probably wasn’t expecting to stand in a byelection in which there was a serious chance of winning so it is one of those things that probably couldn’t have been helped.
Trent @ 5.19pm
Yes I agree generally with you.
There are three issues of note…
1. I understand there was an hyper-aggressive campaign run by “Advance Australia”. We got reports in the Brisbane media (via the brisbane Times) last Tues of Greens campaign workers being yelled at by burly bullies, and aggressive men standing around booths telling voters to “put the Greens last”. It sounds to me, the Greens had quite a “work out” in Prahran. Can’t discount this re-occurring.
2. Mr Burns could run quiet on preferences. I accept Labor recommending Libs over the Greens is probably a bridge too far, however they had Mr Bracks dragged in to basically do this. Bracks entered the fray on Feb-2, and the HTV was common knowledge around Jan-21. Bracks is very well regarded by Labor voters in Vic.
3. The South-eastern end of Macnamara, brings parts of David Southwick’s state patch into play.
Love him or hate him, he’s a good local campaigner.
We’ll see in about 8 weeks time how this all pans out.
They are all good points Nadia. There was most definitely an aggressive Advance campaign, but I think that “Put the Greens last” will be much less effective when there’s a Labor HTVC.
Another point is, if it’s really only a Labor vs Greens race, will Advance put that much effort into helping a Labor MP get elected in an election that will be right between Libs & Labor trying to gain the most seats?
Or alternatively, if they think the Liberals have a chance of winning, would they focus on “put the Greens last” instead of just “vote Liberal”, when the Liberals probably have a better (albeit still very slim) chance of winning a 2CP vs the Greens’ than Labor?
On Bracks, he actually gave Lupton the endorsement before the HTVC was known, Lupton printed it on the HTVC that got submitted on 21/01. He was only interviewed about it later and said he was unaware Tony was doing that, but actually said he didn’t agree with the preference decision.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens at the Southwick end, because Southwick would rather see Burns elected than the Greens, but an ALP to LIB swing there helps the Greens. At the very least he’d tell Jewish Labor voters to preference the Liberals, but that wouldn’t have much impact on the overall result since the Labor vote in that community will be quite low. Maybe he quietly hopes that Burns holds onto his support there.
Latest batch of postals in Prahran broke a lot more evenly than what was counted on the weekend.
The postals counted until Sunday broke 65-35 in the Liberals’ favour.
Today’s batch broke 773-732 (51.4-48.6) in the Liberals’ favour and surprisingly the Greens had a slightly higher primary vote (compared to 51 LIB vs 23 GRN in the first batch).
I think in byelections especially, late postals have more of what would usually be absent votes mixed in.
This should keep the Liberal margin to around 1.6% rather than increase it closer to 2%. Not that it should matter in 2026 anyway.
“I accept the sample is 400, and the poll is 8 months old. I appreciate most posters will run straight to the shredder with this sort of poll data. However…
* I think most of us are in agreement that the ALP Fed vote in Mac will fall below the Greens.”
This is somewhat of a non-sequitur
Our only data point is a 9 point PV difference between Labor and the Greens…12% of last time Greens votes intending to switch to Labor compared with 7% the other direction….the other last-time-vote-categories overall significantly shifting to Labor compared to the Greens.
Seems plausible, despite this, for the Greens beat Labor at 3CP, but certainly any consensus that that WILL happen would suggest the group forming that consensus isn’t really a rational / informed group
I certainly wouldn’t call it a consensus or even say that it “will” happen, I think the 3CP race between Labor & Greens will be another nail-biter that could go either way, and for that reason it makes it the Greens’ best target since all they need to win is for their 3CP result to go backwards by at least 0.5% less than Labor’s does.
But really it’s a 50/50 tossup that I don’t think Prahran gave any real insight into because Labor didn’t run.
I think Prahran gives a little more insight than credited by some, to what could happen in future elections, in spite of there being no official Labor candidate.
I think this point, whilst relevant, is being overstated. It may just be a bit too convenient.
I’m not sure that Libs would have lost if Labor had been standing. Indeed, Lab might even have collapsed to a lower level than Lupton achieved in any case given that this is not a good seat for them at the best of times let alone with Victoria Labor’s current standing.
OTOH, it’s still a reasonable possibility that the seat reverts to Green at the next state GE.
But if (still only an ‘if’ at this stage) it does turn out to be a proper ‘change’ election in Victoria where swing voters are focusing on ridding themselves of Labor, it will surely be close. Whereas if Labor are competitive across the state, then surely Greens are likely to win Prahran back.
BSF / Nadia
Do you mean quinella or perfecta? Surely nearly everyone got the quinella!
kwi-ˈne-lə : a bet in which the bettor picks the first and second place finishers but need not designate their order of finish in order to win; compare perfecta.
(Merriam-Webster)
@BTSays: I think the fact that even if the only thing that changed about the result of this byelection was if Lupton’s preferences flowed 55-45 to the Libs instead of 70-30 to the Libs, but everything else that massively favoured the Libs including Labor not running remained identical, it would have been a 50.3% Greens 2CP, shows just how difficult it would be for the Libs to retain this at a normal election.
Then when you compound all the factors exclusive to the byelection, removing each one starts moving the 2CP more and more in the Greens’ direction even before you add a Labor candidate into the mix and get at least a 75-25 preference flow to the Greens.
Hypothetically, say Labor ran and only got Lupton’s 12.7%, and a much weaker preference flow to the Greens than normal, say Lupton’s 70-30 flow was just reversed, that would have been a 53-47 Greens 2CP.
(There’s no possible way Labor are reducing to 13% though)
The numbers definitely don’t support the Liberals having any realistic path to retain this seat.
Labor will get at least 20% (or close to it), their preferences will flow at least 70-30 to the Greens (probably a lot more although not as much as 2022), turnout will be 10-15% higher and work in the Greens favour, there will be a broader campaign which puts more focus on the Liberal PARTY and leader whereas Rachel Westaway was really able to make this about her, and also Liberals resources will have to be spread thin across the whole state (while the Greens still concentrate theirs to < 10 seats), and Lupton won't run again or at least if he does, he'll just split the conservative vote and lose the Labor base who'll go back to Labor.
Any one of those factors would probably flip this to a Greens win, as would have just 15% of Lupton's voters changing their preference, let alone all of those factors compounding.
I'd predict at least 56-44 Greens again.
@Trent, I would agree that the Greens are likely to win back Prahran at the GE, but in your analysis, are you incorporating the possibility that the Greens PV includes a material number of Labor voters?
@The Revisionist, yeah I am definitely. The Labor vote will be somewhat offset by a reduction in the Greens’ primary vote.
One thing that stood out to me in the breakdown of preference flows though, was:
– Lupton’s 12.7% went 70-30 to Libs
– The non-Lupton 14.9% went 55-45 to Greens
(That’s where the Lupton preferences even reducing to a 55-44 LIB flow would have been a Greens retain)
The non-Lupton “Other” vote would have had a lot of ex-Labor voters too, so it seems the preference backlash against the Greens was contained mostly to the Lupton vote, helped by the HTVC but also because he ran a campaign focused on putting the Greens last.
Also important I think is that the Liberals still only managed a +5 primary vote swing, in the absence of Labor, and in very favourable conditions, so like in Werribee people didn’t embrace them directly. I think that will reduce at a general election where Rachel Westaway isn’t able to make it so much about only the local candidate, and it’s in the broader context of the Liberal Party running in a state election, with a big focus on the party leaders.
Those two factors combined tell me there may not be such a crash in the combined GRN+ALP primary (although it will reduce), that any swing against the two will probably go to “Others” as much as the Libs, and the preferences of the “Others” (excluding Lupton) flowed pretty much the same as they did in 2022 slightly favouring the Greens.
As long as Greens + ALP still combine for anywhere around 55% of the primary vote – which is still less than 2018 despite more favourable boundaries now – a Liberal primary even in the 35-40 range won’t be competitive.
I’d predict the Liberals get around 35% (+4 from 2022), Greens + ALP combine for around 55% (-8 from 2022), and “Others” around 10% (+4 from 2022).
That’d probably equate to roughly a -6 2CP swing which lands me at 56-44 (I actually didn’t put those numbers together before guessing 56-44 before either so that’s a coincidence).
If the Liberals get 37 and Others only 8 for example if Westaway gets a bit of an incumbency boost, that’d still be around a 55-45 Greens 2CP.
For Labor to hold Macnamara, the seat will have to defy the overall Victorian trend in a fairly drastic way. Bludgertrack has the ALP’s vote down 3.6 percentage points and the Greens’ down 0.4, which would easily deliver the seat to the Greens. Maybe local issues will come to the rescue, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
And Labor won’t direct preferences to the Liberals unless they go stark raving mad. Apart from gifting seats to their challenger for the government benches, they would get smashed all over the shop by Greens voters changing their preferences out of spite.
There’s no guarantee of Prahran going back to the Greens in 2026. It’s not natural Greens territory and has been generally Liberal-leaning for most of its existence. The Greens only managed to win it in the first place by a handful of votes, then extended their lead as Hibbins built up a personal following (my reading of the situation). Now they have to start again, with the Liberals having the advantage of incumbency, it’ll be tough to get back.
Seat-level polls are notoriously unreliable. The last time I can remember* one being correct was in 2007 when a few of them predicted John Howard losing Bennelong. That was a bit of a special case, because there was so much interest in the seat the major reputable polling companies took it seriously.
* I now expect to be bombarded with more examples from those with better memories than mine.
@The Revisionist:
“I accept the sample is 400, and the poll is 8 months old. I appreciate most posters will run straight to the shredder with this sort of poll data. However…
* I think most of us are in agreement that the ALP Fed vote in Mac will fall below the Greens.”
This is somewhat of a non-sequitur
Our only data point is a 9 point PV difference between Labor and the Greens…12% of last time Greens votes intending to switch to Labor compared with 7% the other direction….the other last-time-vote-categories overall significantly shifting to Labor compared to the Greens.
Seems plausible, despite this, for the Greens beat Labor at 3CP, but certainly any consensus that that WILL happen would suggest the group forming that consensus isn’t really a rational / informed group”
______
Classic Nadia. Conflating ‘a punt’ with data and then postulating some sort of group ‘concensus’.
No wonder the united Anti-Labor Party droogs on the board love her to bits.
Well, that’s done and dusted.
Labor has squeaked over the line but with a bloody nose. They will argue , as would the Liberals in the same position, that they copped a traditional anti- government by- election swing plus the .
loss of a sitting members locked – in votes -and survived…
Fair enough.
But there is a strong message for Jacinta and her team. lift your game before the next election. No doubt the Libs will repeat the mantra ad nauseum about a tired government and time for a change.
But behind the Libs froth and bubble, the scoreboard shows a Labor victory on the field. According to the polling, a government on the nose, and yet the Libs still couldn’t go up 2- 0.
They would be wise to make sure there are no more ructions in the Party background. And no doubt, Labor will push that message about power- plays and far- Right ideology behind the scenes in the Libs.
So the message is clear- both major parties need to watch their ps and qs and be on their best behaviour.
And the Greens? They’re smelling just like the two major Parties they love to hate.
Changes needed there too before the big match.
Werribee Results @ 1810 Friday
Lister (ALP) – 21531
Murphy (Liberal) – 20892
Prahran results @ 1520 Friday
Westaway (Liberal) – 16352
Di Camillo (Greens) – 15363
Interestingly, only 68% voted in Prahran versus Werribee 79%. This possibly hides a fall in the Green primary vote (11k versus 14k) last time. The Liberals primary vote was only a few hundred less than in 2022.
Now rant time – It is time for Allen to go. She is drowning at the moment and I can’t see it getting any better. Her media performances have always been mediocre but now they are bad with the press sharks smelling blood in the water.
The craziest thing is the current youth crime wave is almost entirely caused by the change to bail laws that happened 2.5 years ago. Previously if a youth was arrested whilst on bail for a different offence they generally didn’t get bail; Now they do. This is just causing a crime wave. It is leading the news bulletins about half the time. Of people, don’t feel safe.
But the problem under the current rules of the ALP, challenging her is going to be almost impossible. They need to get 60% of caucus and then the membership has to have a vote if the leadership is contested. So I can’t see Carroll or anyone else wanting to pull that leaver as it would be just too messy. So the Victorian ALP is stuck with a dud leader unless Allen admits that the situation is hopeless.
Andrew_Earlwood.
It would appear you have a major issue with nadia88. Pull your arrogant head in will you.
Being as “up yourself” as you are, you are clearly oblivious that she actually picked a Lib win in Prahran around New Years Eve/Day (yeah – six fucking weeks before polling day) , and yet she had the good grace to credit the win to other posters.
She knows her politics that one, which is more than can be said about you.
Give her some slack will you instead of running around putting her & others down who don’t meet your “Labor is great” test.
I repeat: Pull your arrogant head in.
B.S.Fairman
Yes, my “rant” is over too.
I get fed up with useless posters on this site constantly having a crack at posters who actually know what they’re talking about.
re: Allan – She’s turning into the gift which keeps on giving for the state Libs. 16% primary swing against her, and yet we still have some posters here believing that the ALP is on track to pick up more seats in Victoria. I have never heard such cloud fruitcake rubbish in my life.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2025/02/08/prahran-and-werribee-by-elections-live/comment-page-10/#comment-4455133
Prahran is an inner suburban seat with lots of flats and share houses, so it has quite a bit of Green territory. The last 2 redivisions have been unfavourable for the Libs (all of Toorak has now been removed from Prahran) and quite a bit of redevelopment has occurred in the seat as well, providing more housing for younger voters.
The ALP is also effectively certain to run at the 2026 general election (to boost the vote in Southern Metro and keep their statewide total up) and also highly unlikely to preference the Liberals ahead of the Greens.
A general election also means lots of absent votes and generally higher turnout, both of which will favour the Greens.
So the Greens are likely to regain Prahran next year.
Trent
I think most are in agreement that, all things being equal, Greens have a fairly strong likelihood of retaking Prahran at the next election.
However, I still think you may be overlooking one point.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’re assuming all Lupton voters would have been Labor voters had Labor stood instead of Lupton. I really doubt that this is the case – in fact in this scenario whilst Labor may well have polled higher than Lupton did, taking votes that went to Greens and ‘others’, I also think some of Lupton’s vote would have gone straight to Lib, pushing their PV up higher than it was.
No I’ve taken that into account. There are offsetting factors on both sides I’ve taken into account.
On the Lib side, there may have been 3-4% of voters who would have put them #1 if Lupton hadn’t run. But at the same time, so many compounding factors relating to the byelection (eg. Turnout, there not being a broader attack campaign against the Libs, no focus on leader/party let Westaway make it local, etc) probably increased their vote by somewhere between 2-4% so I think it evens out.
On the other side it’s the same. Greens really should have increased their vote more with no Labor candidate and I absolutely think it indicates a swing against if Labor had run. They probably gained at least 7-8% from there being no Labor candidate. But, again that would be partially offset by losing 3-4% from the byelection factors.
This is why I think if it were a general election with Labor running and no byelection factors, the Liberals still would have got 36-37% but the Greens would have been 31-32%. But I also think Labor would have got a 23-24% vote with at least a 75-25 preference flow to the Greens.
And the Liberals aren’t competitive in that scenario.
I will hardly being talking instructions from a RWNJ toss pot like you Paul the A.
But thanks for proving my point about Nadia being a pin up for the united Anti Labor Party droogs on the board.
Ok Trent, fair enough. We’ll never know for sure! 🙂
Full preference distribution was done for Prahran today and final 2CP margin was 1.35%, a little less than the 1.6% from the provisional throw.
It’s definitely a small enough margin (427 votes) that any one of the byelection-specific factors alone could have flipped even before factoring in the lack of Labor preferences, let alone all of them compounding each other, which is why I think it should be a pretty comfortable Greens gain again next year.