Live Commentary
1:53pm Liberty Advances was defending 35 of the 127 Chamber seats up and have won 64, a gain of 29. They will now have a total of 111 of the 257 Chamber seats, to 96 for Homeland Force and 20 for United Provinces. In the Senate, LA were defending two seats and gained 11, while HF were defending 15 and lost eight, with UP not defending any of their seven senators. So the Senate is now 26-26 out of 72 between LA and HF with 13 for UP and the remaining seven seats for local provincial parties.
12:08pm Official results are here. With 95% counted, LA defeats HF by 40.8-31.6 and takes 64 of the 127 seats up at this election to 44 for HF. In the Senate, LA has 13 of the 24 senators up at this election, to seven for HF and four for locals. This is a big midterm victory for Javier Milei and his right-wing agenda in Argentina.
11:45am Liberty Advances has won over 40% of the national vote. I can’t find official results.
10:55am Monday We’re still waiting for official results from Argentina, but The Buenos Aires Times says “first murmurings” from Liberty Advances are that it’s “even” between LA and Homeland Force.
7:02am Sunday With results from all 43 electorates in, Connolly wins with 63.4% of the primary vote, with Humphreys on 29.5% and Gavin 7.2%. Turnout was 45.8%, slightly higher than in 2018 (43.9%). But a very high 12.9% of all votes were spoilt (informal). As Connolly received a primary vote majority, there is no need to distribute Gavin’s preferences. Connolly was the left-wing candidate for this largely symbolic office. The current Irish government is a conservative coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
8:22pm Based on scrutineers’ reports, Catherine Connolly will win the Irish presidential election.
8:11pm Lucy Powell has been elected Labour’s deputy leader, winning by 54.3-45.7. But only 16.6% of Labour’s members voted.
7:47pm Live election updates in Ireland look very positive for Connolly. These are unofficial figures being reported by scrutineers and journalists.
7:37pm Labour’s new deputy leader will be announced at 8pm AEDT. Counting began in Ireland at 7pm, but we won’t have any official counts until at least one of the 43 electorates used for Irish parliamentary elections is declared, probably after midnight AEDT.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
From October 8-23, UK Labour members chose between two candidates for deputy leader: education minister Bridget Phillipson and former leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell. Phillipson is regarded as PM Keir Starmer’s choice. Results will be announced tonight AEDT. The final Survation poll for LabourList gave Powell a 57-40 lead (57-26 in September).
National voting intentions in the Election Maps UK aggregate are 30.3% for the far-right Reform, 20.1% Labour, 17.8% Conservatives, 13.6% Liberal Democrats and 11.6% Greens. In the last month, there has been movement to the Greens. Reform is still winning a majority of Commons seats in the Nowcast.
The Irish presidential election was held Friday using preferential voting, with vote counting starting tonight AEDT. Final primary votes should be known on Sunday morning. The candidates are independent Catherine Connolly, who is supported by left-wing parties, the conservative Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys and the conservative Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin. Gavin has withdrawn but will still be on the ballot paper. The president is largely ceremonial with a seven-year term. Polls give Connolly a majority excluding undecided and won’t vote.
Polls for midterm elections in Argentina close at 8am AEDT Monday, with first official results likely by 11am. These are the first national elections since the far-right Javier Milei won the presidency in 2023. Of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, 127 are up for election using proportional representation based on the 24 provinces with a 3% threshold. Eight provinces also hold Senate elections, with three senators up per province. The winning party receives two senators and the runner-up one.
Chamber seats up last faced election in 2021, while Senate seats were last up in 2019. The left-wing Homeland Force (HF) won the presidency in 2019 but performed badly in 2021. They will be defending 46 of the 127 Chamber seats and 15 of the 24 senators up for election.
Mliei’s Liberty Advances (LA) has become the dominant right-wing party, replacing PRO, which has merged with LA. Current Chamber standings are 98 of 257 for HF, 82 for LA and 31 for United Provinces, with the remaining seats for various other parties. In the Senate, HF has 34 of the 72 seats, with 18 for UP and 13 for LA, who are defending only two Senate seats. I believe UP is a right-wing split from HF.
Annual inflation in Argentina fell from a peak of 292% in April 2024 to 32% in September. However, monthly inflation increased from 1.5% in May to 2.1% in September. Perhaps owing to this, HF has gained in national polls in the last few months. Two October polls had a narrow lead for LA, but the other had a seven-point lead for HF.
Other upcoming elections: Netherlands and US states
The Dutch election will occur this Wednesday, using PR to elect the 150 MPs without a threshold. This election is over two years early owing to a collapse in the previous right-wing government after the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) withdrew. The conservative Christian Democrats (CDA) have surged, with polls suggesting the combined vote for three right-wing parties (PVV, CDA and VVD) will be close to the 76 seats needed for a majority. This election is likely to be another dismal European election for the left.
In September I covered US state gubernatorial elections on November 4 in New Jersey and Virginia, a mayoral election in New York City (NYC), a referendum in California for Democrats to attempt to retaliate to Republican gerrymandering in Texas and a federal special election in a safe Democratic Texas seat.
Non-partisan polls continue to give the Democrats high single-digit leads in NJ and low double-digit leads in Virginia. Polls in California have “yes” to retaliatory gerrymandering 20 points ahead. In NYC, current mayor Eric Adams has withdrawn, but polls have Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani leading Andrew Cuomo by a double-digit margin, though this could narrow if Republican Curtis Silwa also withdrew.
I covered the ongoing US government shutdown for The Conversation on October 9. It’s now the second longest shutdown. Neither Donald Trump’s net approval (-9.2 in Nate Silver’s aggregate) nor the generic congressional ballot (Democrats by 3.1 in G. Elliott Morris’ tracker) have changed much.
Copied from the previous thread.
Per the Irish Presidency Election – journo’s seem to think it will top 40%, but won’t get to 43.9%.
Kirsdarke or HH – if you drop by this thread, a couple of new U.K. polls have dropped;
Techne & Find Out Now.
Link: https://www.markpack.org.uk/155623/voting-intention-opinion-poll-scorecard/
Per Powell & Phillipson.
Neither appear to be Corbynista’s.
Phillipson appears to be a bit more “right” wing in comparison to Powell.
Bit complicated, but it looks like the available polling has Powell getting the Deputy job.
I’m guessing the Labour base skews a bit leftward, and they’re the ones voting.
UK key update:
Definitely True 2
Probably True 4
Probably False 1
Definitely False 7
7 false keys for Labour to lose the popular vote.
If it was today:
Definitely True 6
Probably True 1
Probably False 0
Definitely False 7
nadia88 @ #1 Saturday, October 25th, 2025 – 5:28 pm
Thanks. Those UK polls are on the low-end of polling for Labour, but that they show that there’s little change is disheartening.
I do wonder if there might be a Mark Carney-type figure that can turn things around? I don’t think Starmer is capable of it.
Still, 2029 is a while off and events™ can happen.
Yeah Kirsdarke, they’re both “sub 20”.
There was a bit of a glimmer in early/mid Oct with “above 20”, but back down again.
Although it was good news that Reform didn’t jag the seat yesterday, the 11% primary for Labour in a “dead red” seat is ominous. I think they are headed for big problems at the Council elections next year.
Having said that, 2% for the Tories is hardly glamourous either.
Starmer was interviewed today, but he’s come up with the “we need to reflect and regroup” line.
This is wet salad leaf language. He seems oblivious to what is going on around him.
Link: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/keir-starmer-reacts-caerphilly-election-180315095.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJ92Eq5h6lJsHnBerAUFlIOKZJXlGrTGQZp5ugZwPfMKXj3mzJQca8Ld6VgQSvBQU9V2Du8MqrG7RLeZ5evU_FcfDR40PZdvadYN4qI7ueOGXRV-bUIfvD-A83asuA1wPPbLncbzcu-T97Nq5zr1FMenjcR5M3IpLvEti6TI9Ieg
Thanks Arange at 5.46pm.
I thought the keys may be tipping “on the way out”.
Probably the Council elections next May may turn Key 1 False {unless you’ve already got Key 1 banked away as false}. The Council elections will be close to half way.
I’m guessing you’ve got Key 12 false too.
With Key 4 – are you still using 20% as a benchmark, or dropping it back to 15%. There seems to be a few parties now polling within the 12-19% region. Very complicated.
nadia88says:
Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 6:02 pm
“Thanks Arange at 5.46pm.
I thought the keys may be tipping “on the way out”.
Probably the Council elections next May may turn Key 1 False {unless you’ve already got Key 1 banked away as false}. The Council elections will be close to half way.
I’m guessing you’ve got Key 12 false too.
With Key 4 – are you still using 20% as a benchmark, or dropping it back to 15%. There seems to be a few parties now polling within the 12-19% region. Very complicated.”
Key 1 is def false in my personal opinion.
With key 4, for FPTP elections, the benchmark I use is 5%
Got it, no worries. Key 4 is def false then.
Count for the Pres result commences at 7PM PB time.
.. and we should have the Labour Deputy result shortly after 8PM PB time.
RTÉ is reporting that the first boxes (reports from scrutineers, who they call tallies men, rather than official reports) show a significant lead for Connolly but also a very large number of spoilt ballots
Connolly reportedly getting more than 80% in Donegal – a border county with a strong Sinn Féin presence.
Reports that informal is outpolling Humphreys in some boxes
Clear lead according to the Guardian, but no numbers.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/25/catherine-connolly-ireland-presidential-election-leftwing
New Northern Ireland poll from Lucid Talk.
SF 25% -1
DUP 18% +1
TUV 13%
UUP 12% +1
SDLP 11%
AP 11% -1
GPNI 4% +1
PBP 2%
Aontú 2%
Others including independents 2% -1
A five year low for Alliance from this pollster.
@nadia88: 12 hours later, but the Guardian piece you linked to has at least some numbers. Connolly got 63% of first-pref votes, Fine Gael’s Humphreys got 29% and FF’s Jim Gavin (who dropped out?) got 7%. I do believe that’s called a “roflstomp” in the vernacular.
Worthy of note is that over 200,000 votes were spoiled, which according the Guardian indicates frustration over the “lack of choice” offered to the voters.
Analysis of the spoilt ballots will be interesting
Why vote informal in non-compulsory voting?
Were these traditional Fianna Fáil voters frustrated that their candidate had withdrawn and who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Fine Gael (despite the grand coalition some people are still upset about their great grandfather being tied to a landmine in 1922) or a candidate with Sinn Féin backing?
It’s not an informal vote.
Informal makes it sound like some sort of error made by the voter as in a skipped or duplicated preference number.
These are deliberately spoilt ballot papers with voters not selecting any of the candidates or selecting them all without preference f them or writing in other candidates names or making other comments that invalidate the paper from being counted.
I myself have spoilt my ballot in 2 UK elections. Both deliberate decisions and I wouldn’t want it to be recorded as some sort of error by calling it ‘informal’ or trying to say it was a mistake.
Deliberate informals happen at Aus elections too. The informal tally makes no distinction between deliberate and accidental informals.
The new Irish President is a Euro-sceptic which is unusual for a leftist but may be a portent of the future in the EU as those on the left and right unite against the elite political establishment inhabiting Brussels, the establishment political parties of the centre-left and centre-right, the legal establishment and the elite business class.
ChrisC says:
Monday, October 27, 2025 at 6:03 am
It’s not an informal vote.
Informal makes it sound like some sort of error made by the voter as in a skipped or duplicated preference number.
These are deliberately spoilt ballot papers with voters not selecting any of the candidates or selecting them all without preference f them or writing in other candidates names or making other comments that invalidate the paper from being counted.
I myself have spoilt my ballot in 2 UK elections. Both deliberate decisions and I wouldn’t want it to be recorded as some sort of error by calling it ‘informal’ or trying to say it was a mistake.
=====
ChrisC – Why would you bother doing this when voting is voluntary?
Matt says:
Sunday, October 26, 2025 at 2:09 pm
@nadia88: 12 hours later, but the Guardian piece you linked to has at least some numbers. Connolly got 63% of first-pref votes, Fine Gael’s Humphreys got 29% and FF’s Jim Gavin (who dropped out?) got 7%. I do believe that’s called a “roflstomp” in the vernacular.
Worthy of note is that over 200,000 votes were spoiled, which according the Guardian indicates frustration over the “lack of choice” offered to the voters.
======
Thks Matt,
The numbers got populated in the link – as you said – 12 hrs later.
Per the 200k spoiled votes. Interesting to see why this occurred given voting is not compulsory.
Michaél Martin’s leadership of Fianna Fáil and Taoisechship (?) now under challenge after the disastrous captain’s pick of Gavin
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41731464.html
I read that he wants a referendum to change the way the candidates are selected, as he believes it is too restrictive.
Apparently there has been a bit of a tizzy about the Conservative candidate being excluded, and some of the spoilt ballots had anti gov’t messages, as covered in this article
Link: https://extra.ie/2025/10/26/news/micheal-martin-referendum-election-process
Just with regard to the term length too; If they want to get a successful referendum result, perhaps also lower the term to say 5 years. I think 7 is way too long
N88
I would oppose direct election of an Australian president for fear that Johnny Farnham would win.
This election Bob Geldorf, Michael Flatterly and the civilly convicted rapist Connor McGregor put forward their names but couldn’t be arsed to go through the process. An advantage of the current nomination system.
I think Martin is missing the point- after 100 years of hating each other the politicians of the 2 main civil war parties fell into bed very quickly-only united by an even greater hatred of the third civil war tradition.
A FF voter without a viable candidate will not necessarily vote for FG.
Why they would turn up at all is the question- perhaps only to show their displeasure at FF’s stuff up
The AEC attempts to distinguish between deliberate informal votes and elector mistakes. The last estimate I saw, from a few elections ago, it was about 50:50.
I tend to write “this is a deliberate informal vote” on the ballot when I refuse to pick between the duopoly.
Argentina President Milei’s party La Libertad Avanza (LA) has won a thumping victory in the mid-term elections winning an additional 64 (of the 127 seats up for election) lower house seats taking its total in the lower house to 101 seats (out of a total of 257 lower seats) and winning an additional 14 senate seats (out of a total of 24 senate seats up for election) taking its total in the Senate to 20 seats (out of a total of 72 senate seats).
Milei’s party won more than 40% of the vote with the main opposition party languishing behind on little more than 31% of the vote.
Milei’s economic and social revolution appears to be quite popular in Argentina.
Milei has obviously rigged the election.
Ghost Of Whitlamsays:
Monday, October 27, 2025 at 2:53 pm
“Milei has obviously rigged the election.”
How do you come to that conclusion?
PB logic
Oakeshott Country says:
Monday, October 27, 2025 at 10:05 am
N88
I would oppose direct election of an Australian president for fear that Johnny Farnham would win.
This election Bob Geldorf, Michael Flatterly and the civilly convicted rapist Connor McGregor put forward their names but couldn’t be arsed to go through the process. An advantage of the current nomination system.
======
No worries OC, I was referring to the Taoiseach and his comments about a referendum in Ireland, def not OZ. Gosh, if we had a popular vote for our President it might even up as Fat Cat, or Humphrey B.Bear getting elected.
It certainly is hard to be nominated; either 20 members of the parliament (including Senators- the most useless group of legislators in Europe) or 4 of the county councils- independents and celebs can get a nod but it takes an effort.
This year Maria Steen a socially conservative Catholic barrister almost got on with 16 members nominating. A few elections ago Dana (All kinds of everything) Scanlon with a similar pov got on the ballot and got 3%
@Oakeshott County:
” (including Senators- the most useless group of legislators in Europe)”
I see your Seanad Eireann and raise you one UK House of Lords. At least the Seanad can actually block a bill it doesn’t like. (I know, it doesn’t often due to the Taoiseach appointing 11/60 of the Sennadoiri directly, but at least it *can*.)
Trump being besties with Argentine leader showed in the landslide result.
Japanese new leader a big fan of Maggie Thatcher.
What’s the world coming to labor luvvies?
Winning!
The amazing thing about Milei’s victory is that he preached his values and followed thru with policies that would be hard to sell – ie cutting the umbilical cord of excessive government. Anyone from the centre right is Australia watching – people actually admire and respect boldness and centre right values – free speech, limited government, lower taxes.
BTW Reform and Milei are not “hard right”, so stop trying to associate them with 1930s Germany.
Paul Baker – you are correct. Reform UK and Milei are not far right but you will learn that Pollbludger comments section can be an echo chamber of extremist leftists and far left cooker nut jobs.
Milei is popular in Argentina and has won a thumping election victory because he is dismantling the failed intolerant economic and social policies of the far left Argentinian political establishment. The leftist parasites in Argentina whose wealth is dependent on the continued implementation of failed far left economic and social policies at the expense of the mainstream Argentinian people will use every tool at their disposal to stop Milei. The far left will fail because Milei’s economic and social Revolution is successful in dragging Argentina’s economy and society back to health.
“dragging Argentina’s economy and society back to health.”
And all it needs to work is ongoing gigantic bailouts from the United States (on top of their #1 spot borrowing tens’ of billions from the IMF) because Milei was about to send the country bankrupt propping up his failed economic policy. Any country in the world could be “dragged back to health” if you gift it 100 billion dollars in free money paid for by the poor in other countries.
And at the low cost of sending poverty skyrocketing. But who cares about poor people right, they don’t count as human to MAGA. And most of them are those brown indigenous people who don’t vote the way the rich want! Fuck em!
So simple!
Ghost of Whitlam – an example of a far left cooker nut job. Crocodiles tears for poor people (and so typical of the desperate need to talk about skin colour as if they really care about skin colour and poor people). Typical Totalitarian far left cooker.
Freedom’s fact free zone has arrived. He can’t respond to facts, so he has to respond with typical MAGA racism and personal attacks.
Interesting few days of overseas elections.
Well onto the Dutch election we go!
Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/geert-wilders-dutch-netherlands-issues-house-of-representatives-b2852673.html
Per the Dutch election tomorrow (Netherlands time) so prob Thurs OZ time.
PVV has had a decline in polling since 2023
The main left party (An “alliance” between the Greens and Labour re-formed on 12-Jun-2025. This alliance refers to a shared candidacy list). I’m guessing they feel threatened by current polling and have formed this alliance to pool their votes. Interesting.
A group called D66 (Centre Left) have increased quite dramatically in the polls, &
VVD (right wing) have also increased.
Should be an interesting election. My amateur guess…
* PVV will remain about the same (37 seats)
* The Labour/Greens Alliance will lost seats (currently 25)
* D66 will gain seats (currently 9)
* VVD will gain seats (currently 24)
If it’s a hotly contested election will it be called a “ Dutch oven”?
Thoughts on the Dutch election:
There’s still 15 parties in parliament, but with the single issue 50+ replacing NSC, who lost all 20 seats after coming fourth on debut last time.
D66 bounced back from a bad result in 2023 and then some (over the last three elections they’ve gone from 24 seats to 9 to 27). CDA did similar, regaining all the seats they temporarily lost to NSC (who were basically a CDA splinter group).
On the far-right, PVV lost 11 and BB lost 3, but JA21 gained 8 and FvD gained 4, so there’s little overall change there (except that nobody wants to deal with PVV now).
Overall it seems to have returned largely to the 2021 election, where they took almost a year to re-form the same four-party coalition that had existed prior. That was VVD, D66, CDA and CU (a small Christian party). The first three of those come up 10 short of a majority, and Green/Labour is the only party (apart from PVV) that can fill that gap, so that seems like the inevitable four-way mess this time. Having a centrist party leading the coalition might negotiations a bit easier, but it’ll still take a while.
It’s only a mess if the parties make it one.
The problem with the last government was none of the party leaders were in the Cabinet (to prevent Wilders becoming PM) so there was perhaps less investment in making it work especially on Wilders part. Easier to criticise when you’re outside the tent even when you helped build it.
It was also a mainly technocratic one so fewer active experienced politicians sitting in cabinet and the technocrats perhaps not always appreciating that politics gets in the way of governing. PM Schoof was a senior civil servant for example.
Plus Wilders seemed to act like he was in charge when he wasn’t and at times like a toddler having a tantrum because he couldn’t have his way.
There was only an early election because he pulled his party out of the government because he disagreed with the governments immigration policy – a policy that was devised by one of his own appointees to the government and who had the immigration portfolio.
And the Dutch system is perhaps not the best example for PR. Basically if you can get .67 of the national vote you get a seat. Based on the current results 9 parties will have MPs yet none of those 9 achieved 5% of the vote (5% is a common threshold to gain representation on many other PR systems) and have 29 seats between them. Allocating those seats to the more popular parties could result in more stable governments.
So, per Wikipedia the Dutch election results are in, and the single biggest party? The generally left-wing D66, coming in at 16.9% of the vote and a record 26 seats. The biggest loser? Arguably, it’s Wilders’ PVV – not only did they shed 11 seats (to tie D66′ 26 seats), but their former coalition partners (VVD, BBB and NSC) fared poorly too. VVD lost 2 seats, down to 22 seats. BBB gained zip, treading water at 3 seats. And NSC got wiped out, losing all 20 of their Parliamentary seats.
This is not a Parliament made for governing, I fear. I don’t see any route to a reasonably stable Government which commands the necessary 76 seats for a majority. I mean…*maybe* a PVV/VVD/CDA/JA/BBB coalition could form Government. But that’s a five-party “coalition”, including at least some outright kooks, with a bare 2-seat majority (78 seats total). Given that the PVV/VVD/BBB/NSC Schoof Cabinet lasted less than 2 years, I wouldn’t bet money on a Wilders Cabinet going for a full term of Parliament.
Matt. There is a close to zero chance of the PVV (the Wilders party) being part of the next government.
His actions in bringing down the last government show him to be a unreliable partner in government.