A two-month Victorian state polling drought has ended with a bang, with Freshwater Strategy reporting earlier in the week, DemosAU doing so today, and Resolve Strategic presumably set to follow next week. All of which would seem to be an unwelcome development for Jacinta Allan, with DemosAU joining Freshwater Strategy in showing Labor running third behind One Nation. The Coalition is up a point on the last DemosAU poll in February to 30%, with Labor down two to 21% and One Nation up two to 23%, and the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 53-47 to 55-45.
Jacinta Allan’s positive rating is up two to 18%, but her negative rating is up four to 57% with neutral down six to 25%. Jess Wilson is up five on positive to 32%, down three on neutral to 46% and down two on negative to 22%. The poll was conducted Sunday to Thursday from a sample of 1056. A full report including extensive demographic breakdowns will presumably be available on the pollster’s website shortly – Freshwater Strategy has now published its equivalent from the poll earlier in the week.
Socrates says:
Saturday, June 13, 2026 at 6:55 am
Allen should resign as leader on these numbers. She is doing a lot worse than Federal Labor.
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It’s a 12 year gov’t, but you raise an interesting point re: Federal Labor
The last time the Federal vote in Vic was above 30% was in the 24-March YouGov poll (I’m referring to the BT archives). It’s not flash, but not falling off a cliff. I’m guessing there isn’t that much of a Federal drag. The most recent YouGov had the Fed ALP vote in Vic at 23%. Will be interesting to see what that is on Tues night when YouGov next updates.
blackburnpseph says:
Saturday, June 13, 2026 at 3:35 pm
Whats the intention? Win an election or save the furniture? …..
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I think it’s more a choice of lose the election badly or save the furniture
So, at the risk of offending the “you don’t know what the word actually means” crowd.
All this polling (The Age is dropping a Victorian state poll tomorrow) is designed to create a sense of political urgency and chaos.
It is shameful manipulation of the agenda by people with a vested interest.
The first goal is to force and ALP leadership change, then a state change of government to ANYTHING BUT LABOR.
Sadly it appears to be working.
The Federal polling has Labor winning – you wouldn’t know it if you read or listen to the MSM!
Pardon my naivety, but do the MSM want to replace Allan so Labor will do better?
The MSM just wants clicks and carry out their owners’ wishes.
Jacinta Allan has had nearly 3 years to grow into the job as Premier and she has clearly failed. For the good of the party she should resign and keep her dignity, since otherwise she’ll be remembered as the one that led Labor to political oblivion just like Joan Kirner, Carmen Lawrence, Kristina Kenneally, Anna Bligh and Lara Giddings.
It’s not fair, I know, but there’s no fairness in politics.
Resolve poll has PHON at 28%.
Interestingly, based on this poll the LNP has the same primarily vote as the Greens with Female voters (16%), while PHON has 32%.
Also has Albos approval rating at -20 (35 pos, 55 neg) maybe the alp needs to reconsider him?
The Age drops a Victorian state poll exactly every two months, and this one is right on schedule.
Allan is a dud and widely disliked. I am a card carrying decade long ALP member. She needs to go. People have stopped listening to her.
“All this polling (The Age is dropping a Victorian state poll tomorrow) is designed to create a sense of political urgency and chaos.”
This has got to be contender for ostrich of the year. The bloody house is on fire and some are just like “This is fine”.
At this rate the PV of Labor may run forth to Lib,ONP and Greens.
Not that the Libs and their supporters should be laughing too hard, They themselves might end up also running behind the greens federally.
Maybe some soul searching and actually finding some sort of belief might be a good starting point for Vic Lab. But alas the ship has already sailed.
Taylormade, if you’re still around,
I prefer the word ‘pedantry’.
Having a look through the Victorian bludgertrack (Thanks Mr WB)
What is noticable is that much of ONP vote appears to be coming straight off Labor, much less than the Liberals / Nationals.
ONP’s greatest appeal seems to be to the working class. The capital class appears to be still with LNP.
Weird times
I had some time on my hands and tried to come up with a seat projection based on the zones used in the Demos Poll. I attempted to use proportionality across each zone – i.e. Labor losing 1/3 of their vote in inner metro and then applying that to every seat. I had to use the flat vote from the poll for One Nation as there was nothing else to work with. I came up with:
LNP – 48 seats
ALP -23
Greens – 9
One Nation – 8
On my first round I had 16 seats where I could not pick a winner – I then best guessed these so they went 8 Labor, 5 LNP, 3 Green.
The big mystery to me is what the One Nation vote will actually do and also what will happen in that outer ring of Western and Northern Melbourne seats going from Werribee going clockwise round to Kalkallo. They do seem to indicate a Labor collapse however.
Interesting thing in Victoria is that the LNP vote appears to be holding up (as opposed to the Federal vote where the LNP often has a “1” in front of it.
Labor & the Greens should probably hang onto most of their inner seats.
Just with the outer area’s, it really depends on which parties make the final 2PP. If the Labor vote collapse is really on, they’ll probably drop out at 3PP stage, and their preferences will more than likely help to elect a Lib candidate (which would help them bag 48 districts, probably more). If Labor can hang in to the final two then it will be either Lib votes distributed or ON votes being distributed.
It will come down to very strict preference discipline between One Nation and the Libs. If there is strict discipline, this should help the Libs to rack up a fairly big seat haul (ie: outright majority).
But yes, caution there with what Lee2 has picked up, with the current transfer of Labor voters to O.N.
Those votes are more likely to return to Labor if O.N. gets cut from the pack at 3PP stage.
Will be a fascinating election.
I know it was a waste of money for Labor, but it would’ve been good if they’d fielded a candidate in the Nepean by-election, just to see how preferences played out.
Regarding the heavily anti-Labor media’s motivation to create urgency for a leadership change when that will probably only help Labor recover a little (and therefore be against their interest), putting on my tin foil hat I think maybe they see a leadership change as already being almost inevitable so they want to control the narrative around it.
The best case scenario for Labor, as others have said, would be for Jacinta to voluntarily announce her retirement in November and step away to the backbench. No blood, and as one of Australia’s longest serving MPs, retiring after 27 years wouldn’t be unexpected. If Labor have internal polling that she is likely to lose Bendigo East, she would certainly be weighing up a dignified exit prior to the election.
But timing is everything. Jacinta would really have to do it this month to leave enough time for her successor to cut through, and an avalanche of dire polling coupled with headlines like the Herald Sun’s last week – where even they are saying Jacinta has to go – allows the media to somewhat control the narrative. In the absence of a spill that could look like disunity and undermine their attacks on Lib spills, even a voluntary retirement announcement right now could easily be framed more as her giving into internal pressure and being forced out.
The staunchly anti-Labor Nine papers would be frothing at the fact that Resolve is dropping the night before the last time the Labor caucus meets prior to the winter break, because if Jacinta announces a retirement this week, it would look like a direct response to that poll.
On the topic of federal drag that had been mentioned above too, I think this is a case where Federal Labor’s polling in VIC is actually being dragged by the state government. I don’t think the federal government are dragging the Allan government at all.
In the current Liberal seats in Melbourne – both Inner and Outer – it is quite possible that the ALP will end up behind the Greens. The Greens vote seems to be holding up well with a marginal increase. In my calculation above, Monbulk started as an ‘unknown’ result but I gave it to the Greens on the basis that they ended up in front.
In regional Victoria, even if ON do very well, in the safe National seats, the starting vote is so high that they have a lot to lose. In those seats, I can see Labor and Greens bolstering the Nats. I do suspect that the votes that went to Independents in the last few elections in Mildura, Shepparton and to a lesser extent Benambra might end up with One Nation as they were spoilers to start with.
In 2022, Labor just got home in both Bass and Pakenham on a primary vote of 32%. For what it is worth, on the calculations that I did, they did not get of a vote of 32% in any seat in the whole seats. They will be relying on the Greens, VS and leakages.
….and on that note, Resolve has dropped.
ALP 26
LNP 26
ONP 24
GRN 12
IND 5
Others 7
Wilson leads 39-20 as preferred premier.
Not as disastrous as the DemosAU and Freshwater polls, but still not great.
If I average the primary votes for all 3 polls that dropped over the last week, I get the following (rounding to .5):
ALP 23.5
LNP 27.5
ONP 24
GRN 13.5
Others 11.5
To compare apples to apples, Labor’s primary vote with Resolve specifically is actually +4 since the byelections took place which is interesting. They were 22% in January 2025. Meanwhile the Coalition are -16 with Resolve since that January 2025 poll where they were at 42%, but obviously that’s mostly just gone to ONP.
What I find very interesting is that in the last few weeks, I have heard people say or heard of them saying out loud that they would vote for One Nation – and in my case these are people that live in Melbourne and Brisbane. Prior to that, except for relatives in FNQ, I had never heard anyone say out loud they would vote for One Nation.
One Nation have become normalised. That’s unfortunately what happens when a major party – and the party who has been in government for most of the post WWII era – starts treating them like a mainstream party, directing preferences to them, and openly talking about working in minority with them.
JA is so unpopular people that people that prefer her as premier is even lower than ALP primary.
It’s why I think that even a neutral, complete unknown leading the party probably doesn’t even have to build a profile to do better than JA and recover at least some of Labor’s vote, because there are clearly a cohort of people who don’t particularly like any of the alternatives to Labor, but simply don’t want to re-elect Jacinta Allan. Her brand is worse than Labor’s.
As others have said too, people have tuned out from her. She could announce the most incredibly popular policies ever and people just wouldn’t listen. Labor need a new messenger.
@Trent
A generic Labor candidate would be well ahead of JA. She had -40 approval 1.5 years ago. Nothing changed, people made up their minds. 90% of people wouldn’t even know who Jess Wilson is but they know she ain’t Jacinta.
I don’t buy the stability arguments put forward as a reason to stick with her. We got 1/4 to 1/3 electorate want to blow the joint up. Libs on their 3rd leader this term. That’s just old politics talking point.
Actually OK poll for Labor in voting numbers. Some chance Independent/Others will be less right wing this time around. We had around 7% right wing anti Dan Andrews vote in 2022. Will bring 2pp too close to call.
Yeah I think that poll would deliver a 2PP closer to around 51-49 or 52-48 (to the Coalition), compared to the disastrous 55-45 one (-10% swing) last week.
With One Nation now separated from the ‘Other’ vote, and also the minor right-wing vote really consolidating to One Nation, I think that ‘Other’ vote will be significantly more left-leaning. VS & Animal Justice would probably be the two largest parties in the ‘Other’ cohort, at least in Melbourne anyway, and even in the regions I think One Nation will have cannibalised the SFF vote.
Many thks Trent, and Kirsdarke too on the main thread.
Interesting Pref Premier figures.
Men: Allan 20, Wilson 44
Women: Allan 20, Wilson 34
Quite a disparity
Edit – even more of a disparity with O.N. topping the primaries amongst women.
Trent says:
Monday, June 15, 2026 at 1:02 pm
It’s why I think that even a neutral, complete unknown leading the party probably doesn’t even have to build a profile to do better than JA and recover at least some of Labor’s vote, because there are clearly a cohort of people who don’t particularly like any of the alternatives to Labor, but simply don’t want to re-elect Jacinta Allan. Her brand is worse than Labor’s.
As others have said too, people have tuned out from her. She could announce the most incredibly popular policies ever and people just wouldn’t listen. Labor need a new messenger.
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Who’se your best bet – Carroll or Williams.
I agree, with a net sat sitting around minus 37, it’s very difficult for JA to turn the ship around in 20 weeks.
My view is Labor’s best bet is neither, it’s someone less known like Steve Dimopoulos.
Ben Carroll has to protect his own seat just as much as Jacinta Allan does, he’s the education minister and teacher strikes are fresh in people’s minds so his portfolio is vulnerable to obvious attacks, and having a slightly higher profile than competitors means he’s more associated with the Andrews-Allan government and I think Labor needs something that signals a refresh.
Gabrielle Williams has a safe seat but certainly won’t win over the type of voters flocking to One Nation, and while Transport & Infrastructure are huge strengths of VIC Labor, being so associated with the Big Build is probably more of a liability this time. The electorate knows Labor can deliver infrastructure, it no longer needs to make it a central focus. Voters are now asking “What else?” and I think have some Big Build fatigue. Unfortunately, I can imagine that a lot of the electorate would see her as another female leader in a high-vis vest which is what they are emphatically rejecting right now.
Steve Dimopoulos has a safe seat that’s likely to have a below average swing (inner south-east), he’s relatively unknown and a left field choice like that would probably feel like a bit more of a refresh, he’s the minister for major events which is something Victoria (especially Melbourne) does well for example still topping Best City & travel destination lists, he also comes across as very likeable which as with any politician wears off in time but I think he’d carry a lot of that shine into November, his local popularity may assist Labor in neighbouring key seats like Bentleigh & Ashwood, and being of Greek heritage may help win back some of the second & third generation migrant communities who are swinging to One Nation, this could help them in some of the outer northern seats too.
So, he’d be my choice. But if it came down to Carroll or Williams, I’d probably have to say Carroll will help their electoral chances slightly more. Gabrielle Williams would appeal more to ALP-GRN swing voters than ALP-LIB or ALP-ON swing voters and it’s the 2PP swing they need to minimise.
No worries. I haven’t heard much about Dimopoulos but there was chatter somewhere about him being a consensus candidate. I’d think they’d probably need a higher profile figure (at this late stage of the cycle) within the party to start trying to save the furniture, but OK, it could be this Dimopoulos politician.
I think Prem Allan will be gone this week though. Three consecutive nasty polls, although this poll isn’t the worst of the three.
This poll is actually considerably better than the January 2025 Resolve poll. Labor are +4 compared to that and it’s the Liberals who are -16 (although that movement has just gone further right to ON). Labor have remained in that 25-30 range for about a year now with Resolve after a couple of sub-25 polls in early 2025.
I think it will actually benefit Labor to have a low profile figure to be honest. It slightly helps with the “It’s Time” factor when you present the electorate with a relatively unknown commodity.
The problem is that it is a government that has got old and stale, and the problem with governments that are old and stale is that the talent level generally runs down. Except for Ben Carroll, the other share a surname of Who? Some of the Labor hard heads are probably kicking themselves for letting James Merlino or Jill Hennessy or even Martin Pakula go last time.
Merlino was acting premier for months when Andrews was off injured. I actually think he just didnt like the job or see himself doing it for years.
Good point about James Merlino. I think he would have been good leader and resonated pretty well, but you’re right that he most likely didn’t enjoy or want the job full time.
Ben Carroll ruled out any challenge today, starting next to the Premier, said he’s quite happy with his current job of Education Minister.
I don’t think anyone will challenge Allan. There may be conversations to encourage her voluntarily resign (which she should, especially if she’s likely to lose her own seat anyway), but I don’t see a challenge or spill happening.
Who would want the job of premier from the Labor party at moment.
There are still a few unexploded ordnances that look suspiciously like landmines that will be trodden over in the coming months. It’s not going to be pretty.
I still can’t fathom the popularity of one nation in Victoria. What is their ceiling? 35 percent? Nationally it might reach 40 percent. It’s like waiting for a flood peak but the deluge is still coming (due to missteps by Labor and the LNP).
It does make for some interesting reading though
Something that will become important down the track is who will be the ON state leader and candidates.
Poorleen cant stand for a state election here. Has happened before that voters have got confused when her name is not there.
Something to think about
Per a potential O.N. leader in Vic – there has been some chatter about Adam Giles (the former NT Chief) taking on the job. Apparently he’s moved to Victoria.
From the AFR….
Link: https://www.afr.com/politics/trades-hall-boss-blasts-complacent-victorian-labor-mps-20260616-p6078g
The head of Victoria’s powerful Trades Hall Council has fired a broadside at Labor MPs for failing to campaign hard enough for the state election, calling out 23 of them for having zero engagement with their constituents in the past two weeks.
Council secretary Luke Hilakari wrote to MPs and candidates on Tuesday morning, warning them that if they did not lift their campaign game, the union movement would pull funding and support that would help them get elected on November 28.
Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari sent a strongly worded missive to Labor MPs on Tuesday morning. ….. But MPs who “don’t give a shit about winning” their seat should not expect support from the union movement, Hilakari warned in the email seen by The Australian Financial Review.
“In deciding where to focus our efforts, my executive council has asked for details about which MPs have been actively campaigning. I was frankly enraged to learn that 23 MPs or candidates have had ZERO conversations with voters in the last fortnight,” Hilakari wrote.
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Labor politicians getting told what to do by a union leader.
He makes a point though – if they’re not doing the hard work in their electorates – go.
Did this include Upper House MPs? From my experience of dealing with Labor Upper House MPs they seem to have consciously avoid any public interaction. From my experience, quite different from dealing with Liberal MPs, who have always responded even when I wrote an email highly critical of their actions.
Adam Giles was a conspicuous failure in the NT so why try and foist him onto Victorians. At least the highly repellent Cory Bernardi was South Australian. Except for my pondering whether Moira Deeming might do a last minute switch, I can’t think of anybody that would fit the bill. Can anybody else?
Allan’s insistence that the cost to the Victorian taxpayer of CFMEU corruption on the Big Build was not $15 billion (which I don’t believe either) but being wholly unable to answer a question about how much it was, is not doing her any favours. She should at least be able to give a response of the appropriate authorities have been given more powers to look into this and they will be able to determine the cost through their investigations, or something. Dodging the question on 7:30 last night was a bad look.
I happened to have to watched the interview. It was an absolute trainwreck. Have her staff just given up? The longer it goes on, the worse it’s going to get