The Age reports on the first Resolve Strategic Victorian state poll since March, resuming the pollster’s practice of alternating between bi-monthly New South Wales and Victorian state polls from samples of 1000 that combine the relevant sub-samples from two of its monthly national polls. The results show a remarkable recovery in Labor’s fortunes, in common with Newspoll and RedBridge Group polls from July. Labor’s primary vote is up eight points from May to 32%, with the Coalition down by the same amount to 33% and the Greens down two to 12%. The size of the remainder, which consists of 9% independents and 13% others, makes two-party preferred hard to estimate, but it could be conservatively put at 53-47 in Labor’s favour. The change in preferred premier is relatively modest, Brad Battin maintaining a lead of 32-25 over Jacinta Allan, in from 36-23.
I will also remind people Jeff Kennett was never behind in the polls until he lost 1999, so anything can happen between now and next year. I still think the Libs will win and it will be considered a shock victory, but when you look at history, It’s not really a shock. and people are ignoring the rise in youth crime which most voters think government is doing nothing about.
Battin is a flop and will Victoria really fall for yet another News Corp racist, tired, hackneyed Laura Norda campaign?
GOW, I agree, but look at the government. this is easily the most unpopular premier since Kennett on several fronts, but the opposition has serious structural and leadership issues that even I fail to approve of.
I love the irony that people keep saying SRL will save the government, but there are plenty of governments that delivered big projects like this and still were defeated at the polls.
Even if the former QLD government had delivered a project to this magnitude, they still would have lost, and would have been a landslide loss had it not been for the disaster LNP campaign. People do appreciate these projects, they are popular. But I am not convinced it’s enough to sway votes because time and time again it’s proven that it does not.
In Tasmania, everyone was saying that the stadium would hurt the Libs (despite Labor supporting it) we didn’t see a huge surge in the greens or anything. People rarely vote on one issue.
This election is not being decided in 2025, it will be decided in November 2026 during the campaign, both leaders must prove themselves. But any disaster campaign by either side will cost them dearly.
If labor runs a disastrous campaign they will lose next year, and if the liberals run a disastrous campaign, I wouldn’t rule out an increased labor majority.
If the general rule is that 3-5% is up in the air during a campaign, that is normally enough to switch an election winner, unless they have a massive lead in the polls.
At the federal election, most undecideds went labor at the end and that’s how they won a large majority, the coalition will need to win a lot of the undecideds but it cannot be ruled out if they ran a decent campaign and labour ran a disastrous one.
Don’t underestimate Allans chance to screw things up, she seems gaffe prone, unlike Andrews, Andrews was a better campaigner. she doesn’t seem to be as good as a canpaigner as recent Labor leaders, but she is certainly better than Matthew Guy.
Libs run a ‘decent campaign’? They can’t even manage Moira Deeming.
Next year will be another ALP romp over the Libs.
Are the Victorian Libs are making the same mistake as their Federal counterparts: not repenting hard enough or fast enough of a dalliance with Trumpian models of politicking? If the last Federal election showed anything, it was that such politicking is electoral poison here in Australia.
The Liberal Party are irrelevant for reasons too many to put
The pleasing response is the bile being presented by Le Grand of 9 Entertainment, unable to understand why a progressive government remains popular
Le Grand should look in the mirror
Battin is good needs to get stuck into weak leader.Should be smashing labor on weak on pedos in childcare.
Also debt but they are not aggressive enough seem disinterested.
Slamming public sector unions is absent also and Nationals are useless so faux libs looking at another loss.
Cut through by libs zero.
Need to announce cuts and be liberal aka Kennett.
Hey Chip,why don’t you tell how you really feel.
‘For Victoria, Allan’s bounce back is anything but healthy’
Of course labor going ahead has nothing to do with the big build.
And why would the promise of 40 minute between services between Traralgon and Melbourne 7 days a week now coming in to fruition encourage voters to vote for more of the same.
Sorry Chip but when you add up all that Labor has done and what is programed to come on line prior to November next year you would have to be totally one eyed to believe the coalition has any gumption to improve on the list.
Victorian state Labor is like Henry Bolte,here for the long term because the majority of us like stability and a steady hand .
Some grumble around the edges orchestrated by the lunatic fringe,antivaxers,foil hat brigade,sovereign citizens and Neo-nazis but in all seriousness they are in no way the majority and that’s that in a democracy.
What can you say about an Opposition leader and ex cop who turns up at a murder scene and attempts to make political mileage out of it.Yes the guy has balls alright…lead ones.
This is really a battle as to who can lose harder, but to my surprise after the start of the year, the LNP have really doubled down on their ability to blow it.
Battin has no authority over his party and can’t wrangle a backbench that’s still very much inclined to do wild stuff that throws the party off message. It happened with the budget reply (which wound up being derailed by a Liberal MP dumping animal poop in the Premier’s office, which he couldn’t bring himself to condemn) and it happened again with Deeming and friends’ absolutely wild response to Battin’s efforts to end the Deeming saga once and for all (Deeming claiming that the party agreeing to pay her costs constituted ‘institutional abuse’ was a real memorable moment).
Every time Allan’s management hands him an opening (like cuts to frontline public services or the emergency services levy not associated with boosts to emergency services funding) Battin squibs the response and then gets sent wholly off-message because his backbench or someone on the administrative committee goes completely off the rails again.
Unless Battin can get the Deeming faction to quit the party – which is a possibility given that Deeming’s preselection is understood to be in doubt due to what seems to be, hilariously, a local ethnic community figure outstacking her in her branches the old fashioned way on non-ideological lines while she was distracted – I can’t see Battin being able to stay on message enough to oust Labor.
Labor is a lot weaker electorally than they were under Andrews, and I was really concerned about the amount of complacency on the left about it earlier in the year (the Herald Sun claimed Andrews was unpopular when he wasn’t so often that progressives don’t believe it when the polling is genuinely bad), but the Victorian Liberals’ capacity to blow it should never be underestimated.
I expect a bit of a status quo outcome with the Greens this time around. The Greens were supposed to be targeting Albert Park, Footscray and Northcote, but Labor have put in strong women MPs into all three seats, none of whom will go down without a real fight, and Prahran will be hard to get back due to the Liberal preferences issue that hurt the Greens in the three-way marginals federally.
I also think the other wildcard is going to be whether Sam Groth is actually dumb enough to sue the Herald-Sun over the stories about when and how he met his wife. He seems to have neutralised it as a story with the legal threats and I suspect that’s probably the end of it; if he actually follows through (given the details that aren’t in dispute), it’s going to be an absolute tabloid field day with one of the Liberals’ (usually) better media performers at the heart of it.
Chip Le Grand is absolutely fuming at this poll, and it is glorious. He still demonstrates his lack of finger on the pulse by attacking the Suburban Rail Loop again, but at least he has now worked out both that the WFH policy is a winner despite what “newspaper editors” think, and that the legal issues raised about it are a non issue because there’s a friendly Labor federal government in place to deal with any state-Federal clash issues.
@Daniel – go look at a map of the landslide swings to Andrews in 2018 including in seats that never previously voted Labor, realise how they map onto the areas affected by the level crossing removal project, and tell me again that successful delivered infrastructure doesn’t swing votes in Victoria.
Tasmania and the stadium is in no way comparable. Both major parties support it and it hasn’t been built.
When the new rail line and the West Gate Tunnel open, it will make a tangible difference to the commuting time and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, that swings votes.
Bailieu lost his job because even Libs perceived him as “do nothing Ted”. It’s the cardinal sin in Victorian politics. And Battin and co until recently basically campaigned on not building things Labor was going to build so….
Brad Battin has absolutely no cut through – John Pesutto was getting there when he was cut down by the Moira Deeming stuff. Lets face it – the Liberals are an unelectable rabble and Battin seems to have no authority inside the party so they all just keep rabbling on and on . Labor should be held to account but no-one does it. The Libs fight each other instead of the government.
Normally, when the incumbent falls behind on the preferred prime minister/premier/chief minister measure, it’s a sure sign he or she is dead person walking. For the incumbent’s party to be (apparently) in front in such circumstances is very unusual. In fact, off the top of my head I can’t think of a precedent.
Why do people on this forum struggle to accept that Labors policies like WFH or shorter working week or SRL are actually popular?
I think Jacinta suffers in the shadow of Dan but a credible leadership change about now woulf fix that.
Anyway labors election ads have written themselves with choice quotes of lib on lib abuse.
That’s a pretty big “Undecided” vote on Preferred Premier, 43%, up from 41% in fact. Still a long way to go before the election.
Also Chip Le Grand being salty as expected that despite his constant anti-Labor opinion articles the voters don’t seem to be listening to him.
What is it with Victorian state political newspaper editors with big egos trying to be part of the story?
Ante Meridian: There have been a few cases of this in the past. Rebecca White in Tasmania is perhaps the most obvious example in recent memory, managing to outpoll Liberal Premiers as preferred Premier for years while Tasmanian Labor remained consistently always behind in the polls in the same period.
Allan has spent a lot of her premiership consistently breaking bad news and having to be on the defensive, and Battin, while having no control of his party, often comes across as personally inoffensive. I don’t think it’s that surprising in this context, given that it’s the broader Liberal Party that is the reason the Liberals are unelectable.
Grimesays:
Thursday, August 21, 2025 at 8:10 am
Hey Chip,why don’t you tell how you really feel.
————————————————–
“Large Fries” is having a really good sook over this poll. The three most liked comments on his article currently are these three:
1: “It is disturbing for you Chip because it is your “side” that is going down the drain.”
2: “This will be worth it if only to see the devastated, incredulous look on Peta Credlin’s face on election night.
There are few joys in life that compete.”
3: “Yes, it’s Labor’s fault the LNP are a bunch of morons…”
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/for-victoria-allan-s-bounce-back-is-anything-but-healthy-20250819-p5mo86.html
@Ante, I think on the Preferred Premier measure the big story is that 43% are undecided. Which indicates a low level of familiarity with either or both leaders, and it’s probably just a case where the Liberal voters are more certain in their ‘anyone but Jacinta’ response.
On the SRL and WFH stuff, there have been two polls that asked about the SRL, both had more support than opposition but one in particular actually even had clear majority support of over 50% statewide; meanwhile the recent Resolve poll about the WFH policy had 64% support with even over 50% of Coalition voters supporting it.
So I totally agree with Corleone, that I think it’s time people stop pretending that those policies aren’t popular. Those who oppose the SRL oppose it vehemently – that includes every media outlet for some reason (but apparently The Age also opposed the City Loop) – but they are not a majority.
I have predicted for some time in these comments that 2025/26 would be much better for Labor than 2023/24 were, and that it seemed like 2023/24 were a deliberate strategy to front-load the bad news and unpopular decisions away from the election cycle, then go into election-preparation mode from 2025 (coinciding with the opening of major projects).
Also, from late 2023 to early 2025 federal Labor were also unpopular, and both inflation & interest rates were rising in 2023-24. They may be federal issues but with Labor in government at both levels, that’s obviously who voters will take anger out on for their household cost of living concerns. But now with interest rates & inflation both heading in the right direction and federal Labor popular again, that is obviously going to have a flow-on effect to the state government too.
That appears to be playing out based on the Resolve, Newspoll & Redbridge polls also showing a sharp swing back to Labor. In Resolve’s latest poll, what’s also interesting is the July/August breakdown, Labor’s primary (32 overall) was 30 in July and 34 in August.
That means, over the past year in Resolve’s polls, Labor’s primary slumped from 33 to 29 to 27 and way down to 22 between May 2024 and January 2025; since then it has increased to 24 in March to 30 in July to 34 in August. The increase from July to August also shows it probably wasn’t just a post-federal election sugar hit.
Meanwhile the Liberals in that period went from 35 to 37 to 38 to 42 in January (just before the byelections), then down to 41 in March and 33 in July/August – lower than the 2022 election.
There’s a long way to go, and as Daniel says the results often come down to the quality of the campaigns. But does anybody, even staunch Liberal supporters, genuinely because that the Victorian Liberals are capable of running a stronger election campaign than Victorian Labor? Love or hate their policies and ideology, I don’t think anybody would deny the campaign strength of the Victorian Labor machine. And certainly the absolute incompetence of the Victorian Liberals at presenting a compelling narrative to voters is one of the biggest frustrations of Liberal voters.
As I said yesterday in the Open thread, Jacinta Allan is the drag on the Labor government and their vote is holding up despite her. I think the main issue is she is doesn’t come across as very empathic in her media performances. Anyway I can’t see her being replaced in the near term unless something bad happens, where as in March I thought she was going to be gone about now.
The Liberal party’s infighting shows that if they were to win government it would collapse into chaos within weeks. And I am not sure how 4 years of backstabbing and sniping at each other would last. There is no easy way to go to an early election in Victoria.
For the Coalition to win they’d need to gain 16 seats, which would require a swing of about 8% to them on the pendulum.
That did seem possible in February and March in the Werribee and Prahran by-elections, but it won’t be happening on these numbers.
As for Labor they’d lose their majority if they lose 12 seats (assuming they hold Ringwood and South Barwon after expelling Will Fowles and Darren Cheeseman), but will probably accept the votes of the Greens on the crossbench if it comes to that.
In addition to that, the lack of Labor candidate as well as other very unique circumstances around the Prahran byelection that won’t be relevant at a general election, mean that I would actually still consider Prahran a seat with a 12% GRN margin but LIB incumbent as its baseline, since the 2025 margin is quite meaningless – you can’t apply any swings to that byelection result due to one of the major parties sitting it out.
In that context, the Liberals actually need to gain 17 seats to form government because if by some miracle Rachel Westaway wins Prahran (she won’t) I’d consider that a gain rather than a hold, despite her being the incumbent. If the Greens win it back (most likely outcome) I’d consider it a hold more than a gain because 2022 is a more comparable ‘BAU’ baseline than the byelection.
It’s worth pointing out that the overlapping federal results (and this factors in postals in a way that is favourable to the Liberals) in Prahran would have been an ALP v GRN 2CP and a clear ALP win, and the Liberal 2PP would have been even lower than their 2022 Prahran result. They will clearly do better than that at the state election but would need to outperform the overlapping federal result by about +17 to win. It also continued the clear linear trend in Prahran from 2014 to 2018 to 2022 if you discount the byelection, which I think demonstrates just how much of an anomaly the byelection was.
The way things are looking now since Labor have recovered, I can see the Liberals only gaining around 6 seats, while I can see Labor gaining Richmond off the Greens (especially if the Liberals direct preferences to Labor) and an IND defeating Pesutto in Hawthorn.
If all that eventuates, we’d see a seat count of something like:
51 ALP, 33 LNP, 3 GRN, 1 IND. Which I think looks pretty realistic based on how things are currently tracking.
(A couple of dark horses, the Greens could pick up Footscray from Labor based on how both their own vote and the VS vote has surged in that area including the federal election where Labor did extremely well everywhere else, but at the same time if the Liberals decide to preference against incumbents or put the Greens last, Labor could pick up Melbourne off the Greens)
Trent,
If the numbers in that poll hold until election day, we can probably look forward to a significantly expanded crossbench. With the majors both hovering around a third of the vote, surely ‘others’ would get more than 4 out of 88.
Mind you, I had similar thoughts about the federal election until the Coalition ran history’s most incompetent campaign. But obviously lightning won’t strike twice. Probably.
I think the issue with an expanded crossbench will be that Victorian electoral laws don’t favour minor parties or independents as much as at a federal level, and independents don’t have a history of doing too well. Not within Melbourne anyway.
However, I can see an IND picking up Hawthorn, because Pesutto only narrowly won in 2022 and I believe a lot of that was based on the promise of taking the leadership and shaping the Liberal Party in the image of what Hawthorn voters want. That failed so voters don’t have that motivation anymore. Also in 2022, Labor were incumbent which would have hurt the ‘tactical’ vote so the IND didn’t even make the 2CP. Whereas in 2026 I think it’ll be easier for Labor to step aside and let an IND take the seat.
Mornington is another seat where an IND could possibly win but I wouldn’t put money on that.
As for the Greens, I think Brunswick is completely safe, re-gaining Prahran is probably their next most likely seat, and they’d be favoured to hold Melbourne too; but if the Liberals decide to run a “Put the Greens last” campaign like they did federally I think they’d be gone in Richmond and Melbourne could also be under threat.
However, I think that could be partially offset by a gain in Footscray: at the federal election, a lot of the overlapping booths had combined Greens + Socialists primary votes in the 55-60% range, and that was in an election where Labor did extremely well.
I don’t see the Greens picking up Northcote, Preston or Pascoe Vale though. I don’t think Liberal preferences will flow as strongly to the Greens as 2022 regardless of where they decide to direct them.
So I can envision a cross bench that looks like:
IND: 1 (Hawthorn), maybe 2 (Mornington)
GRN: 3-4 (Brunswick, Prahran, and 1 or 2 of Melbourne & Footscray)
Of course, on a good night for the Greens they could very well retain Richmond and pick up something like Northcote, I’m favouring Labor for both of them right now though.
Just on this poll, of note is that in the 20-34 year age gap, the Greens have now overtaken the Libs for the 2nd consecutive poll, as noted by Kos Samaras on his X feed.
The current primary gap for this age group is:
* LNP 20%
* Grn 25%
I reckon Kew is more likely to go to a well resourced Indie. Not so much Mornington
Kew & Hawthorn are similar electorates, and both fall within the boundaries of the Kooyong Division, which is obviously held by an Indie.
Edit: Good to see you back on the site Trent
nadia88 @ #25 Thursday, August 21st, 2025 – 2:55 pm
That’s true, Independent Sophie Tornie came very close to 2nd place in Kew last time (21.1% compared to Labor’s 22.7%) so she could very well win it if she does better in 2026.
Mornington could still be close though, Independent Kate Lardner only lost to Liberal Chris Crewther by 49.3-50.7%.
Oh and there’s also the matter of a possible sophomore surge in Kew, Jess Turner was first elected in 2022 so she might get a bit of a boost in her personal vote, assuming she’s done well as a local MP.
But sophomore surges don’t happen all the time, as Zoe Daniel would attest to.
I think also in Kew, Jess Wilson was an unknown new candidate, and the Liberal brand there was no doubt damaged by its previous member Tim Smith and not only his reckless driving behaviour but his comments about how the Liberals should forget about Kew and focus on Cranbourne.
I think Jess Wilson will get a sophomore surge as someone Kew voters might see as the future of the VIC Libs.
On an 0.7% margin, and given more ‘regional’ type areas often seem to gravitate to independents more than urban ones, I think Mornington is a more likely IND gain but I’d still favour a LIB retain.
Hawthorn though is the seat where the Libs have everything working against them. The angle/appeal of Pesutto’s 2022 run is gone, an IND will more likely finish above Labor than in 2022, and the suburb of Hawthorn itself continues to densify and go through a similar demographic & political realignment to South Yarra which has gone from Liberal-leaning to solidly progressive as well (I believe 2016 may be the last time the Liberals won the 2CP in any South Yarra booth at either a federal or state election, and they no longer even win the primary vote).
Hawthorn though is the seat where the Libs have everything working against them.
===========
Absolutely, and it looks like they were quite determined to avoid a messy by-election there this year.
Of course, bailing out the current member has now triggered a further fist-fight within the party.
Gosh, they are in such a mess.
Key update:
Definitely True 8
Probably True 3
Probably False 1
Definitely False 2
7 false keys needed for opposition 2PP win.
If it was today:
Definitely True 9
Probably True 2
Probably False 1
Definitely False 2
Wilson is from the IPA – and highlighting that will be a negative for her
On pre-school
We have a government introducing more “red tape” to address this issue (because of the activities of one individual) in privately owned businesses
But elsewhere “red tape” is being decried as a negative
Go figure
And it is not the debt – it is the performance of the asset that debt is invested into (so public amenity)
All that leaves is media telling us our streets are unsafe – except go for a walk
(Whoops, I meant Jess Wilson in my 3:14pm post. No idea where I got “Turner” from).
Anyway, yeah, there’s probably going to be growth on the crossbench with the non-Major Party vote being 35%.
Tim Wilson is IPA too and he still won back Goldstein. Basically I can’t see any reason Jess Wilson wouldn’t improve on her 2022 result; whereas by contrast I can’t think of any reason Pesutto wouldn’t go backwards from his 2022 result.
The point is HIGHLIGHTING they are from the IPA Faction of the Liberal Party – which Labor has not done.
Four things are certain:
1) the MSM will try very hard to convince everyone the only possible result is a hung parliament.
2) the libs will self destruct.
3) the ALP will retain their massive majority.
4) keys! Keys. Keys. Marcia. Marcia. Marcia.
Jacinta is as safe as houses: 53/47, a positive incline and liberal infighting.
The Greens numbers are extraordinary in the 20-34 age group. The disaffected Labor voters aren’t going over to the Libs. The garrulous pugilistic sex obsessed libs aren’t giving them any reason to. This is generational. Thank Moira!
“Are the Victorian Libs are making the same mistake as their Federal counterparts: not repenting hard enough or fast enough of a dalliance with Trumpian models of politicking? If the last Federal election showed anything, it was that such politicking is electoral poison here in Australia.”
That was barely a factor, merely a media contrivance.
What the last federal election showed, was that Dutton is terrible at election campaigns and his team are terrible at coming up with a programme and message that showed them ready for government.
It was anyone’s to win when the election was called, Dutton lost it badly during the campaign exactly as Daniel T said above.
Had Dutton run a competent, clear campaign on ‘cost of living’ like he had actually been doing somewhat well with earlier on, and not made gaffes and u-turns on various, there’s every chance the LNP would have won and no-one would have been attributing blame towards Trump or Trumpiness then.
At the most, it became an added factor BECAUSE he had run a terrible campaign.
Trent: when Kevin Bonham deals with seats that’ve changed party in a by-election, he takes the average of the previous election and the by-election result as a notional margin. For Prahran, that’s 5.3% Grn vs Lib: safe-ish, but marginal enough to be on the Libs’ radar. If you treat Lib/ALP and Lib/Grn margins like they’re the same, a uniform 5.3% 2pp swing (roughly a 50-50 result) would get the Libs eight Labor seats – everything up the pendulum to Melton, plus Prahran. Assuming the ALP/Grn marginals stay put, that’d be ALP 48 Lib 37 Grn 3. So Prahran’s potentially a seat the Libs could win next year without taking government.
There’s a massive pinata of Labor seats there for the taking if the Libs actually get a decent swing (ie: not this poll). There’s only eight seats below 6%, but then there’s 22 between 6% and 10%. If the Libs get anywhere close to having their shit together Labor might start getting worried.
“If the Libs get anywhere close to having their shit together Labor might start getting worried.”
They are no chance of doing that. They are split evenly between free marketeers and Right Wing Nut Job/Christian Nationalists.
The RWNJCN faction is hell bent on taking over the party and they will do it through stacking and law fare. They are suing each other over the aftermath of the Deeming/Pesutto affair as we speak.
Groth wants to sue the the Sun. The Age reran the story. Oopsie.
Their hatred for each other is palpable. They won’t be ready in 2026.
They are also completely bereft of talent.
So, yes if they get their shit together Labor might get nervous, but there is a non-non-zero chance of that happening.
MABWM,
I just have to mention how impressed I am by the use of double-double negatives. Well done.
Hold on, double-double … That would be 4 times negative. But we only want three negatives or we get back where we started. Or… hang on a sec… err… if the number of negatives is even they cancel out, but if they’re odd…
Oh, freak. You know what I mean.
Jess Wilson may be from the IPA, but I’d say she’s certainly the coalition’s strongest performer.
Honestly, if she bides her time and Labor wins in 2026, she could easily be Premier.
If the Libs win in 2026, I think a repeat of Baillieu/Napthine is likely due to the paucity of what they’re actually offering (won’t cancel the SRL despite the shouting, not much they can really do re: the budget Labor isn’t already doing, won’t commit to non-road infrastructure projects while still depending on the feds for funding) once again becomes apparent.
It’s worth remember that in 2010 they also ran on crime, and it didn’t get them very far once they won. The libs problems are structural because they refuse to admit that there are fundamental contradictions in what their base demands and that their only consistent stance being to oppose whatever Labor proposes can lead you to tie yourself in knots – which is really what Andrews was so skilled at exploiting and Allan is happy to continue to exploit.
@Bird of Paradox: Interesting about Kevin Bonham’s method of calculating a notional margin, and I think that’s generally a pretty good way to do it. I would be much more comfortable with Prahran being considered a 5.3% GRN seat (with LIB incumbent) than a 1.3% LIB seat, as I think that’s much closer to what the final result will probably end up being too.
However, in this particular instance, that method doesn’t necessarily factor in the absence of a major party in the byelection contest which no doubt skewed it even more than a normal byelection to the Liberals.
So I wouldn’t necessarily agree that it’s winnable for the Liberals. I think the simplest way to think about it, is that when all 3 parties run (and GRN & ALP direct preferences to each other like normal) the Liberals would need a primary vote of at least 42% to be competitive as it’s hard to see where they would source more than 8% in preferences from.
So that basically means the Liberals would need to outperform their *byelection* primary vote – which they achieved under extremely favourable conditions (and when the Liberals were polling 9 points higher than they are now) – by about 6% get to roughly a 50% 2CP.
I think the Liberals even matching their byelection performance is a stretch considering their polling has slumped -9 since that byelection was held, let alone outperforming it by +6. Especially since the overlapping federal result continued the dramatic trend away from the Liberals in that area.
LIB 2CP/2PP in Prahran since 2014:
2014 – 49.6% off 44.1% primary vote
2018 – 42.6% off 34.5% primary vote (redistribution then made it notionally 40.9%)
2022 – 38.0% off 31.1% primary vote
Overlapping 2025 federal result* – 33.5% off 27.5% primary vote
* This factors in non-ordinary votes in a way that is overly favourable to the Liberals too; and they actually would not have even made the 2CP but that’s the ALP/LIB 2PP I calculated.
It’s also worth mentioning that in addition to all the extremely favourable conditions of that byelection, they only achieved that 36.3% primary vote at a time when they were actually polling 42% statewide. That -6 difference is roughly in line with the -7 their 2022 Prahran 2CP was compared to their statewide 2PP.
ALP are definitely a bigger threat to the Greens than the Liberals in Prahran. Especially based on the federal swings from GRN to ALP, and with VIC Labor’s polling recovery.
For the record, I don’t think the result will be like the federal election, the Liberals will make the 2CP and probably still win the primary vote in Prahran, but just nowhere near the 42%+ they’d need to actually win the seat, probably more like 35-36%.
Bugler
I’m not sure on what basis Jess Wilson is being talked up ..?
Battin is the Vic Libs best hope if he takes the gloves off and slaps down the rabble-rousers in his ranks.
He would be very relatable to many in the eastern suburbs.
Where the Libs are failing in every jurisdiction is that there is warfare between the Religious Right and the IPA
In regards the Religious Right the faction name says it all
In regards the IPA, they promote austerity delivering confidence and that confidence trickling down plus that the most effective form of regulation is self regulation, unelectable on both measures (look at the “attack” of the Federal Treasury Spokesperson in response to Chalmers this week)
In the real World (so not the world of media), the CBA CEO this week pointed to record levels of savings, record pre payments on home loans, comparatively reduced provisioning for bad and doubtful debts and lending continuing putting this down to full employment, increases in wages, lower inflation and lower interest rates so a very comfortable society
And on the back of this, after dipping, CBA Shares have rebounded and Shares in the other 3 majors have soared
The LNP should take note of the CBA report, CBA being our largest lender, and support the Australian population not attacking terms and conditions of employment and wage increases
And attacking government investing in community by way of infrastructure spending and spending in health and education
People are prepared to pay taxes if they see those taxes working – so road, rail, school and hospital buildings (and staff)
This activity also leads to jobs
So win/win
And Australians vote accordingly
And relatable to the Eastern suburbs – this is where the ALP has decimated the Liberal Party notwithstanding the foot of the Dandenongs where the Pentecostals are
Will labor increase their majority is the real question.
There was a well funded indie running last time in Hawthorn (Melissa Lowe). However, she failed to overtake the Labor sitting member John Kennedy in the preference count having only got 20%.
If Rob Ballieu, son of Ted and strong backer of Teal Monique Ryan, was to run in Hawthorn as an Independent he would likely win it. However, he could just as easily get Liberal pre-selection for the seat.
Overall, if the Liberals continue to autodestruct there might be a chance for Independents in the more “small l” Liberal areas. But there is a hardened core that just wants Labor out.
Kew was another seat with a serious independent challenge last time from Sophie Torney (she missed out on getting into the final two by ~200 votes, if she’d made it she probably would have got very close to winning). She is now mayor of Boroondara (the local council area which covers Kew) which would give her extra profile, but Jess Wilson would benefit from sophomore surge too.