DemosAU has a Victorian state poll that has the Coalition leading 51-49, unchanged on the last such poll in early September. Labor is steady on 26% of the primary vote, with the Coalition down one to 37% and the Greens steady on 15%. Brad Battin leads Jacinta Allan 40-32 on preferred premier, out from 37-32. Also featured is an upper house voting intention question which has Labor on 21%, the Coalition on 30%, the Greens on 14% and One Nation on 11%. The poll was conducted October 21 to 27 from a sample of 1016; demographic breakdowns are featured in the accompanying report.
Some recent Labor preselection news, details of which are drawn from the Herald Sun’s Backroom Baz column and Benita Kolovos of The Guardian:
• Natalie Hutchins, Government Services Minister and member for Sydenham, announced last fortnight she would not contest the next election. Backroom Baz reports the leading preselection candidate is Uros Rasic, political officer with the Australian Workers Union and former staffer to Hutchins.
• Benita Kolovos reports three candidates for Labor preselection in Bayswater, to be vacated with the retirement of Jackson Taylor: Pamela Anderson, chief executive of Emily’s List Australia; Julie Buxton, policy adviser at Emergency Recovery Victoria; and Sorina Grasso, a former Knox councillor.
• Backroom Baz relates that Rachel Halse, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation organiser and wife of former member Dustin Halse, is the “clear frontrunner” for Labor preselection in Ringwood, whose member Will Fowles has parted company with the party after a troubled term. Benita Kolovos of The Guardian identifies two further candidates in Nildhara Gadani and Mannie Verma.
• Also from Backroom Baz: Cardinia Shire mayor Jack Kowarzik is “odds-on favourite” to succeed Emma Vulin as Labor’s candidate in Pakenham, and Broden Borg, assistant principal at Caulfield Junior College and former Melton councillor, “looks set” to succeed Steve McGhie in Melton.
If conservative Queensland elected and reelected Bligh and Palaszczuk., Jacinta Allan’s problem isn’t her gender.
Those women won despite their gender.
It’s like saying racism in the US is over because they elected Obama twice.
No, Gorks, I know you’re not. In fact your contribution was well considered IMO. Unlike a couple of our usual concern trolls.
MABWM
Not saying sexism doesn’t exist, just that Jacinta Allan’s problem isn’t gender, her problem is she leads an aging government living off past glory, and a build up of issues she isn’t seen to be fixing.
Some people here forget governments lose support and that is what’s happening in Victoria. Jacinta Allan has pretty much stuck to the Andrews agenda, and hadn’t promoted how she is different from Andrews.
I’m still not seeing ANY reasons from the liberal party, or from ANY of their supporters, to vote FOR them. The only thing we ever hear from them is omni-directional whingeing.
Pi, they have nothing and they are delusional. This polling still sees them losing the election, and there has been no scrutiny as yet, and they only have two current public litigations in the news…..
Vic Libs could whinge for England. They are that good.
@Daniel T: “Box Hill and Ashwood are trending away from Labor so I’m not sure why people keep predicting they will stay Labor.”
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Actually they are two seats in the exact area that is trending towards Labor. They were Liberal heartland. Box Hill was a Liberal seat through the entire Bracks/Brumby era, it had a nearly 14% LIB margin when the Liberals won in 2010.
In 2014 it had an above average swing to Labor, in 2018 it flipped to Labor, in 2022 Labor increased their 2PP margin by 5% despite Labor’s statewide 2PP going backwards, and at the recent federal election the area swung towards Labor yet again.
The margin is now over 7% in Box Hill, and currently over 6% in Ashwood which is higher than Labor have ever had in the overlapping former seats of Burwood & Mount Waverley, including the 2002 “Brackslide”. They are definitely areas that are trending towards Labor, who are increasingly becoming the natural party of the educated/professional middle class that dominates the eastern & south-eastern middle suburbs, which are becoming Labor’s new heartland.
The areas trending away from Labor are the traditional working class areas in the outer suburbs. Certainly not Box Hill & Ashwood.
And that makes the electoral map very favourable for Labor because even if there is a statewide 6-7% 2PP swing towards the Liberal Party, those seats on 6-7% margins like Box Hill & Ashwood are the least likely to flip, which makes the Liberal Party need to go further up the pendulum to seats on over 8% (some of which are sandbelt seats like Bentleigh & Mordialloc also trending towards Labor), whereas a lot of the areas trending away from Labor are still on double-digit margins which will likely take multiple election cycles to overcome.
Polls suggested Labor was behind Liberal for months before both the 2018 and 2022 elections… And then Labor romped it home.
I’m not saying this will be a repeat, but also that polls have been pretty much useless in state politics for most of the last decade.
Don’t think that’s quite right from memory @Sleepy Hippo – did you actually look up the latter months’ polls before 2022 before posting?
Jess Wilson has replaced Brad Battin as leader of the Victorian Liberal Party.
Hopefully it’s accompanied by a cooling down of a lot of the sexist rhetoric that’s been floating around directed at the Premier and that Wilson is able to call it out.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-18/victorian-liberal-leadership-spill-battin-wilson/106021260