The Sunday Tasmanian today has a ReachTELpoll of state voting intention suggesting the Liberals will struggle to maintain their parliamentary majority at an election due in March. After distribution of the BLAH undecided, the parties’ vote shares are 43.0% for the Liberals (down from 51.2% at the 2014 election), Labor 32.9% (up from 27.3%) and Greens 13.4% (down from 13.8%). It also finds new Labor leader with a 50.6-49.4 lead over Will Hodgman as preferred premier, after the latter had consistenly trounced White’s predecessor, Bryan Green. The poll was conducted on Friday from a sample of 2817.
The Liberals emerged from the 2014 election with 15 seats out of 25, having won four in Braddon, two in Denison and three apiece in Bass, Franklin and Lyons. The Braddon result is presumably not repeatable, so the challenge is to only lose one seat elsewhere. As Kevin Bonham see it, the party is unlikely to retain a third seat in Braddon, so the big question is whether it can hold on in Lyons. Present indications are that it is likely to be edged out by the Greens, although a ReachTEL poll of Lyons released this week by The Australia Institute credits the Jacqui Lambie Network with 10.0%, suggesting it looms as a wild card both in Braddon and the election as a whole.
I’ve expanded my comments at http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/reachtel-its-all-about-lyons.html somewhat. My new aggregate of all state polling has the Liberals just hanging on to a majority on the seat distribution though this is premised on an evenish spread between their three Lyons incumbents.