Author: Adrian Beaumont

UK local elections minus one week

Labour’s poll lead is being reduced, though it’s still a large lead. Also covered: the coming US debt limit crisis and mixed polls in Turkey.

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, and his own website is here.

Local government elections will be held in England on May 4 and Northern Ireland on May 18. Most of the English seats up were last contested in 2019. The BBC’s Projected National Share (PNS), which converts council elections into national vote shares, showed Labour and the Conservatives tied on 28% each with 19% for the Lib Dems in 2019.

Labour’s national poll lead has dropped a little since three weeks ago, but they still have about a 15-point lead over the Conservatives. The Conservatives are probably gaining owing to lower inflation and greater distance since Liz Truss’ disastrous premiership, but Labour’s ads attacking PM Rishi Sunak for being soft on paedophiles have probably not helped.

The best statistic for the local elections is not the total councillors or councils won or lost, but the BBC’s PNS. In 2022, Labour won the PNS by 35-30 over the Conservatives after losing by 36-29 in 2021. A huge win for Labour could put Sunak under pressure, but if Labour flops, the pressure would be on their leader Keir Starmer, as he approved the Sunak attack ads.  The next UK general election is not due until late 2024.

US House passes debt limit increase with spending cuts

I covered the US debt limit in February. Early this morning AEST, Republicans passed a bill through the House of Representatives by a 217-215 margin that raises the debt limit in return for big spending cuts that Democrats strongly oppose. In the earlier article, I said that the US Treasury has been taking extraordinary measures since January to avert default, but those measures could fail by early June without congressional action.

Democrats could have raised the debt limit while they still held control of the presidency, House and Senate before January 2023. Instead, they’ve allowed Republicans to take the US economy hostage. Republicans have an incentive to cause a recession before the 2024 elections.

FiveThirtyEight has started a poll aggregate of the national Republican primary, which will start early next year, although there’s no national primary “date”, with some states voting earlier than others. Former president Donald Trump has 51.1%, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis 24.3% and nobody else has more than 5%. Trump’s lead over DeSantis has been widening over the last two months.

RealClearPolitics poll averages have Trump leading incumbent Joe Biden by 1.3 points in a general election match-up, little different from a DeSantis lead of 1.9 points against Biden. These averages of very early polls may not be correct, but if Trump was unelectable, Biden would have a large lead. The US general election is in November 2024, by which time Biden will be almost 82 and Trump 78. Biden needs a good economy in 2024 to defeat Trump, which congressional Republicans are unlikely to provide.

Turkish elections: May 14

Turkey will hold presidential and parliamentary elections+ on May 14, with a presidential runoff on May 28 if nobody wins a first round majority. In the parliamentary elections, seats are allocated by proportional representation with a 7% threshold. Parties can join alliances and avoid this threshold provided the alliance gets over 7%.

In some of the latest polls, the social democratic Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu leads the right-wing incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for president by 4-9 points, but is short of the 50% needed to win outright in the first round. Other polls are very close, with some small leads for Erdoğan. There is one pol showing a large lead for Erdoğan, but that’s from a pollster affiliated with Erdoğan’s AKP.

Other recent elections: Finland, Estonia and Nigeria

At the April 2 Finnish election, the centre-left SDP was defeated after one term. Although its vote share rose slightly, it finished just behind two right-wing parties, while former SDP allies all lost seats and votes A new government has not been formed yet, but it will be conservative.

At the March 5 Estonian election, the liberal Reform was re-elected with an increased vote share as the far-right EKRE went backwards.

At the February 25 Nigerian presidential election, the centrist APC’s candidate won 36.6%, defeating the conservative PDP on 29.1% and Labour on 25.4%. Turnout was just 26.7%.

NSW upper house button press: 11am today

Animal Justice a good chance to win the final upper house seat

3:34pm The seventh Coalition candidate defeated Animal Justice after distribution of preferences by 10,628 votes or 0.05 of a quota, only down slightly from the 0.07 primary vote lead on quotas. The margin is too big for a recount to overturn.

12pm The Coalition has won the final upper house seat. That means the left only achieved an 11-10 win at this election, and that the overall upper house is tied 21-21.

11:38am You can watch the live stream of the results on YouTube. So far six candidates have been elected. It was expected to take an hour. It’s the 21st and final seat that is in doubt between the Coalition and Animal Justice.

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, and his own website is here.

The button to electronically distribute preferences in the NSW upper house will be pressed at 11am AEST today. In late counting, the gap between the Coalition’s seventh candidate and Animal Justice closed to just 0.07 quotas. Animal Justice is now a good chance to overcome that lead on preferences. More details in this article for The Conversation yesterday.

The final results for the lower house are Labor 45 of the 93 seats, Coalition 36, Greens three and independents nine, so Labor is two seats short of the 47 needed for a majority. More details and a review of the polling are in last Thursday’s article for The Conversation.

UK local elections minus four weeks

Labour likely to win big at the local elections. Also covered: Trump’s improving chances to win the US Republican nomination, and upcoming New Zealand and Turkish elections.

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, and his own website is here.

Local government elections will be held in England on May 4 and Northern Ireland on May 18. Most of the English seats up were last contested in 2019, at which Labour and the Conservatives tied on 28% each with 19% for the Lib Dems. Labour’s national poll lead is down a little since February, but they still have about a 17-point lead over the Conservatives.

If Labour wins these council elections by the crushing margin polls currently give them, there would be a huge number of Conservative losses, and PM Rishi Sunak would be under pressure, with Boris Johnson a chance at a comeback. The next UK general election is not due until late 2024.

The Scottish National Party’s members elected Nicola Sturgeon’s successor, with the result announced on March 27. Humza Yousaf, who was viewed as the continuity candidate, defeated the socially conservative Kate Forbes by a 52.1-47.9 margin after preferences.

Trump polling strongly for the Republican nomination

Most of this section is based on last Saturday article for The Conversation. Former US president Donald Trump was indicted on March 30 over hush money payments made to a porn star before the 2016 election.

Republican primaries to select their nominee to contest the November 2024 general election start in early 2024. There is disagreement over the size of Trump’s lead, with recent polls rated B+ or better by FiveThirtyEight giving Trump between a five-point and a 30-point lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when other candidates are included. This polling was taken before the indictment, and Trump has surged further ahead since the indictment. No other potential Republican candidate polls higher than mid-single digits.

While the polls disagree on the current size of Trump’s lead, they agree there’s been a recent swing to Trump. A Fox News poll had Trump by 15 points in February, and it recently gave him a 30-point lead. A Quinnipiac poll gave Trump an eight-point lead in February; in late March he led by 14.

If Trump is the Republican nominee, he has a good chance of defeating Biden. Biden’s disapproval rating has been higher than 50% in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate since October 2021. He will be almost 82 by the November 2024 election, while Trump will be 78.

On February 21, Democrats held a federal House seat in Virginia at a by-election by a 74.4-25.6 margin, up from 63.8-36.2 at the 2022 midterm elections. On Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), the left-wing Wisconsin Supreme Court judge candidate defeated the right-wing candidate by a 55.5-44.5 margin. The left now has a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, after long dominance by the right.

These results are encouraging for Democrats, but turnout will be much higher in a presidential election, and Trump is attempting to distance himself from hardline anti-abortionists.

Turkish elections: May 14

Turkey will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14, with a presidential runoff on May 28 if nobody wins a first round majority. The right-wing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been PM or president since 2003, and his main opponent will be the social democratic Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Some polls show a large lead for Kılıçdaroğlu, but others have it much closer.

In the parliamentary elections, seats are allocated by proportional representation with a 7% threshold, down from 10% previously. Parties can join alliances and avoid this threshold provided the alliance gets over 7%. The main right-wing parties are Erdoğan’s AKP and the MHP. Erdoğan has formed the People’s Alliance, while his major opponents are either in the Nation Alliance or the Labour and Freedom Alliance.

NZ Labour and Greens were just behind National and ACT in early March

The New Zealand election will be held in October using proportional representation with a 5% threshold that is waived if a party wins a single-member seat. There were three polls taken in early March, with all three giving Labour a lead over National. However, the right-wing ACT has been doing better than the Greens, so the overall right vote is still ahead of the overall left. If the election result is this close, the Maori party would be the key.

There’s a hint that support for Labour and the Greens has peaked since Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as PM. The March Morgan poll gave the right a 45-43.5 lead, after a 45.5-45.5 tie in February.

New South Wales election live

Live commentary on the NSW election results. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont

Click here for full NSW election results updated live

Live Commentary

11:10 Labor is still leading in 51 of the 93 seats. They would need five leads to fall over to be short of a majority. It’s now 40 minutes after the 10:30pm close of counting, so presumably we’ll have to wait until Monday for more.

19% of enrolled has been counted in the upper house, and it looks as if Labor will win eight of 21 up at this election, the Coalition six, the Greens two, and one each for One Nation, Legalise Cannabis, the Liberal Democrats, the Shooters and Animal Justice. This would give the left-wing parties the 12-9 win they need to take control of the upper house, but the current count is probably skewed to the left.

And with that, it’s time for bed. William Bowe will take over.

10:29 Here’s my Conversation article on the NSW election results. With nearly 48% overall counted, the ABC’s 2PP estimate is 55.1-44.9 to Labor, a 7.1% swing since 2019.

9:36 I’ve been doing a Conversation article. In East Hills, Labor is getting a 9.7% swing on postal primaries counted so far and the Libs a negative 3.4% swing. That’s worse for the Libs and better for Labor than overall in that seat.

8:05pm PB results have Labor on 50 seats, Coalition 30, Greens 3, indies 10 with 19% overall counted. So Labor would need to lose four leads to be short of a majority.

7:46 PB results now giving Labor an overall majority with 8.6% overall counted. 47 Labor, 32 Coalition, 3 Greens, 9 indies. Seats with nothing counted are Liverpool and Manly. Liverpool is safe Labor, so Labor effectively on 48.

7:36 With 6.6% overall counted, ABC’s 2PP estimate up to a 54.7-45.3 margin for Labor. If that holds, Newspoll looking pretty good.

7:30 With 2.1% counted in Monaro, massive 16% swing to Labor where they flopped at byelections in February 2022.

7:22 2.9% overall counted, and PB results have Labor leading in 45 seats, the Coalition in 32, the Greens two and indies in nine. With five seats still to report any numbers, Labor will probably get a majority now.

7:18 With 2.1% overall counted, the ABC is estimating a Labor 2PP win by 54.2-45.8, a 6.2% swing to Labor since 2019.

7:12 1.4% overall counted; Labor ahead in 39 seats, Coalition 34, Greens two and indies eight. Looking harder for Labor to win an overall majority.

7:06 0.9% overall counted, and Labor now leads in 36 seats, the Coalition in 33, Greens in one and indies in seven.

7:02pm 1.1% counted in Riverstone, and Labor gaining that with a massive 19% swing. However, there are some swings to the Coalition.

6:53pm With 0.2% counted, the Poll Bludger results have Labor ahead in 26 seats, the Coalition in 18, the Greens one and independents two.

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, and his own website is here.

William Bowe is working for Channel Nine tonight, so I will provide live commentary on the NSW election results.  I will need to take a break to write an article for The Conversation.

The final NSW Newspoll gave Labor a thumping 54.5-45.5 lead.  Previous polling had not appeared strong enough for Labor to win a lower house majority (47 of 93 seats), but if this poll is correct they would be a good chance of winning a majority in their own right.

From my article for The Conversation today: Votes cast on election day should be counted quickly, but large pre-poll booths are likely to take until late at night or next week.

ABC elections analyst Antony Green said that as of Friday, 28% of enrolled voters had voted early in-person and a further 10% had applied for a postal vote. All election day votes, some postals and some early votes will be counted by the 10:30pm close of counting on Saturday night. Counting will not resume until Monday.

There has been little attention on the upper house, which has 42 members with 21 up every four years, so members serve eight-year terms.  To take control of the upper house, left-wing parties need to win the 21 seats up at this election by 12-9.  I covered the upper house in a preview article for The Conversation last week.  It’s likely to take until at least next week to get a clear picture of the upper house result.

From William Bowe: The results system is up so you at least can see what the entry page looks like, although the seat pages won’t be accessible until 6pm – let’s hope it more or less works as it should, but given all the complications involved in adapting it to optional preferential voting, we’ll have to see how we go. I am holding off including a statewide two-party estimate on the entry page until I’m entirely confident it’s working as I should be. A point to remember about the seats summary on the entry page: if the system is not satisfied that it has the right two candidates for the two-party preferred count, or that it won’t make any difference to the result (requiring a manual update that I may not be all that timely with), the “assessment” will not go beyond identifying a candidate as “ahead” and the “probability” columns will not be populated.

US debt limit, UK local and NZ elections

Democrats’ failure to pass a debt limit increase before Congress changed could bite them. Labour way ahead in the UK and gains some ground in NZ after Jacinda Ardern’s resignation.

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, and his own website is here.

The US debt limit is a legislative limit on the total amount of debt the US government can incur. As the US keeps running deficits, the debt keeps rising. Congress could deal with this issue permanently by either removing the debt limit, or increasing it to an arbitrarily high number. But instead Congress has only raised the debt limit enough to give about one year’s grace before it needs to be raised again. The last time the debt limit was raised was in December 2021.

The US already hit the debit limit on January 19, but the Treasury is taking extraordinary measures to delay a default; these measures are expected to last until June. While the US has never defaulted, there have been previous debt limit crises in 2011 and 2013.

The key reason for the 2011 and 2013 crises was divided government; Democrat Barack Obama was president, but Republicans held the House of Representatives. This situation applies now, with President Joe Biden, but Republicans holding the House. Republicans have attempted to use the debt limit to demand spending cuts.

Republicans only hold a 222-212 House majority, and it took 15 rounds of voting for Republican Kevin McCarthy to be elected House Speaker in early January. But right-wing Republicans extracted concessions from McCarthy, and the Speaker decides what comes to the floor. To keep the right happy, McCarthy is likely to deny a vote on any debt ceiling increase that does not include major spending cuts, and such cuts would be unacceptable to Democrats.

Democrats had unified control of the presidency, House and Senate until January 3 when the new House commenced. But they made no serious attempt to raise the debt limit, and avert a crisis until after the 2024 presidential election. If there is a default, the failure to raise the debt limit will come back to bite Democrats, the US generally and the world.

It currently appears unlikely that Biden will face a serious primary challenge for the Democratic nomination. Biden will be almost 82 by the November 2024 presidential election, and has had a disapproval rating over 50% in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate since October 2021.

UK Labour retains huge poll lead with local elections in May

Over 100 days since Rishi Sunak became British PM, Labour has about a 20-point lead over the Conservatives, with Labour in the high 40s, the Conservatives in the mid to high 20s, the Liberal Democrats at 7-10%, the Greens at 4-6% and the far-right Reform at 3-8%. On February 9, Labour easily retained West Lancashire at a by-election by 62.3% to 25.4% over the Conservatives (52.1-36.3 at the 2019 general election).

Local government elections will be held in England on May 4 and Northern Ireland on May 18. Most of the English seats up were last contested in 2019, at which Labour and the Conservatives tied on 28% each with 19% for the Lib Dems. If Labour wins these council elections by the crushing margin polls currently give them, there would be a huge number of Conservative losses, and Sunak would be under pressure, with the Conservatives perhaps moving back to former PM Boris Johnson. The next UK general election is not due until late 2024.

Nicola Sturgeon resigned as leader of the Scottish National Party on Wednesday. A weaker SNP would make it easier for Labour to win seats in Scotland, giving them a better chance to win an overall Commons majority if their current lead shrinks to single digits.

NZ Labour improves, but National + ACT still ahead

The New Zealand election is in October, with proportional representation used with a 5% threshold unless a party wins a single-member seat. Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as Labour leader and PM on January 22. Polls taken since this change have shown Labour narrowly ahead of National or tied, but the right-wing ACT is ahead of the Greens. So the combined vote for National and ACT is still ahead of that for Labour and Greens.

Recent election results

In the January 27-29 Czech presidential runoff, the pro-Western Pavel defeated the populist Babis by a 58.3-41.7 margin. At the February 12 Cypriot presidential runoff, the centre-left and nationalist candidate defeated the far-left candidate by a 52.0-48.0 margin after the conservative candidate was eliminated in the first round.

Chris Hipkins to be New Zealand’s next PM

Hipkins will be elected unopposed by Labour’s parliamentary caucus Sunday, but faces a tough task to win at the October general election.

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, and his own website is here.

Jacinda Ardern announced that she would resign as New Zealand Prime Minister on Thursday. A meeting of Labour’s parliamentary caucus was called for Sunday, with a two-thirds majority (43 of the 64 Labour MPs) required to win. If nobody had reached this majority, voting would continue.

However, only one candidate gained the seven MP nominations required to stand: Chris Hipkins. As a result, Hipkins will be elected unopposed by caucus on Sunday. Labour holds a clear majority of 64 of the 120 total parliamentary seats, so Hipkins will be New Zealand’s next PM.

Ardern led Labour to a narrow victory over the conservative National in 2017 on the populist NZ First’s support, breaking a nine-year run of government by National. Labour was re-elected in a landslide in 2020 owing to the popularity of measures to keep COVID out.

Ardern also announced that the next NZ election would be held on October 14. The NZ parliament is elected by proportional representation with a 5% threshold, but parties can avoid this threshold by winning a single-member seat.

The combined vote for Labour and the Greens has fallen behind National and the right-wing ACT in the polls. National has led Labour since early 2022, soon after Christopher Luxon replaced Judith Collins as National leader in November 2021. The Wikipedia poll chart suggests a continued trend against Labour.

Hipkins is the education and policing minister, and has a high profile owing to COVID press conferences. He now faces a tough task to win a third successive term for Labour at the October election.

Position still vacant: US House Speaker

Republican Kevin McCarthy still nowhere near the votes needed to become US House Speaker. Also covered: Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s defection from the Democrats.

12:37pm Tuesday January 10: The House rules package that was proposed to get the far-right Republicans to vote for McCarthy has passed the House by 220-213. Just one Republican voted with all Democrats against this package.

4:47pm Rep Kevin McCarthy has been elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives. In the 15th and final round, he defeated Dem Jeffries by 216-212, with the six previous holdouts all voting “present”. That lowered the requirement for a majority to 215 votes, with 428 total votes for all candidates.

3:47pm McCarthy may have done a deal with Gaetz. It was proposed that the House adjourn until Monday US time, but Reps changed their vote against adjournment, so there’ll be another vote today.

3:18pm Two of the remaining six holdouts voted “present”, but the other four voted for other candidates. McCarthy won 216 of the 432 total candidate votes, which put him one short of a majority (217). The present votes were Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert.

9:25am Saturday: It’s been a great day for McCarthy as he flipped 15 of the 21 Rep holdouts in the two rounds this morning, and now leads Dem Jeffries by 214-212 with six votes for another. That’s McCarthy’s first plurality, though he’s still three short of the current 217 needed to win.

The House has adjourned until 10pm US eastern today (2pm AEDT). Two McCarthy supporters were absent this morning, and are expected to return. That will give McCarthy 216 votes, but the votes for a majority will also increase to 218. So McCarthy will need two of the six remaining holdouts to win.

12:17pm House is adjourned until noon Friday US eastern (4am Saturday AEDT).

11:45am Friday There have now been 11 rounds of voting, with five conducted today so far. Dem Jeffries still leads with 212 votes, with Rep McCarthy on 200. McCarthy lost a vote from the absence of Rep Ken Buck. The current threshold to win is 217 votes. There may be a deal between McCarthy and some of the holdouts, and we could see movement to McCarthy in votes later today or tomorrow.

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, and his own website is here.

To win the US House of Representatives Speaker position, a candidate needs a majority of all those voting for a candidate. This is not necessarily a majority of the overall House because abstentions and those voting “present” are not counted. As in Australia, the Speaker position must be filled before the House can consider other business.

At the November midterm elections, Republicans won the House by a 222-213 majority over Democrats, and the death of a Democrat increased that to 222-212 until a by-election is held in February. Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) was the first sitting of the new Congress since the election.

There have been six rounds of voting for Speaker in two days – the first time the Speaker election has gone to multiple rounds since 1923. Democrat Hakeem Jeffries has united the Democratic caucus to win 212 votes, and is ahead of Republican Kevin McCarthy, who has had between 201 and 203 votes.

McCarthy’s problems are coming from his right, with 20 Republicans voting for another candidate in the latest ballot, and one voting “present”. McCarthy has dropped two votes since the first round to be on 201 votes. In the first three rounds the threshold to win was 218 votes, with that reduced to 217 owing to the “present” vote in the last three.

The longest Speaker election occurred in 1855, when it took 133 rounds of voting over two months for a new Speaker to be chosen. Without a Speaker in place, the House cannot set up committees or start investigations into Joe Biden’s presidency. Republicans want these investigations, so surely they will work out some deal for a Republican Speaker soon?

Senator Kyrsten Sinema switches from Democrat to independent

Most of this section is from this December 19 Conversation article. Shortly after Democrats won the December 6 Georgia Senate runoff election to seal a 51-49 federal Senate majority, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema defected from the Democrats to become an independent.

Slate reported on a September poll that showed Sinema was unpopular with all Arizona demographics sampled. Sinema was at net -17 overall, net -20 with Democrats and net -18 with Republicans. She performed better with independent voters, but was still at net -10 with them.

Sinema is up for re-election in November 2024. Democrats are likely to run their own candidate against Sinema and a Republican. A December poll for Democrat Ruben Gallego’s campaign gave Sinema just 13% running as an independent behind 41% for Republican Kari Lake and 40% for Gallego. If Sinema did not run, Gallego would lead Lake by 48-47.

Other news: UK, Fiji, Brazil and Israel

It’s over two months since Rishi Sunak became Britain’s PM. Labour continues to hold a massive lead over the Conservatives, with Labour at about the mid 40s and the Conservatives in the mid 20s. At a December 15 by-election in the safe Labour seat of Stretford and Urmston, Labour defeated the Conservatives by 69.6% to 15.9% (60.3-27.5 at the 2019 general election).

The 55 Fijian parliamentary seats are elected by proportional representation with a 5% threshold. After the December 14 election, three opposition parties formed an alliance to oust Frank Bainamarama, who had become PM after a coup in 2007. These three parties combined won 29 of the 55 seats, to 26 for Bainamarama’s FijiFirst. At the December 24 first parliamentary session after the election, Sitiveni Rabuka was elected PM with 28 votes to 27 for Bainamarama, with Bainamarama conceding defeat peacefully.

Following his victory at the October 30 runoff election, the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) replaced the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as Brazilian president last Sunday. And in Israel, a right-wing government was sworn in on December 29 under former long-serving PM Benjamin Netanyahu after four right-wing parties won 64 of the 120 Knesset seats at the November 1 election.

US Georgia Senate runoff election live

Live commentary from late Wednesday morning on the final contest of the US midterm elections. Also: polls turn against NZ Labour and Jacinda Ardern.

Live Commentary

3:44pm Thursday I’ve done a Conversation article which includes the Georgia Senate runoff result. The big advantage of Dems holding the Senate is that the Senate alone can confirm Biden’s judicial nominations for the next two years.

4:56pm Warnock’s lead out to 51.3-48.7 with 99% reporting. This result means Dems hold the Senate by a 51-49 margin, with Pennsylvania (a Dem gain) the only state to change hands this cycle. But the Senate races up in 2024 are bad for the Dems, as they will be defending 23 seats to just ten Rep defences.

2:59pm CNN and the AP have CALLED for Warnock, who currently leads by 50.7-49.3 with 98% in.

1:50pm The NY Times Needle is back. Warnock’s win probability is over 95% and his final winning margin is projected to be 3.2%. Warnock has just moved ahead in the live count again, but there’s still lots more votes to come in metro Atlanta.

1:37pm Cook Political Report analyst Dave Wasserman has seen enough.

1:23pm Warnock has retaken the lead in the live count, by 50.4-49.6 with 78% in.

1:16pm Back from lunch, and the Needle is still down. Walker is barely ahead now by 50.12-49.88 with 74% reporting. Metro Atlanta should get Warnock home from here.

12:54pm Walker now up by 51.0-49.0 in the live count with 65% in. It was about this time on Nov 8 that his lead maxxed.

12:44pm Live count has Walker hitting the lead by 50.6-49.4 with 59% in. But there’s still lots left to count in Atlanta, so Warnock should win.

12:40pm NY Times Needle has paused updates while they investigate a data issue. It had narrowed just before pausing.

12:26pm Needle now up to a 79% chance of Warnock winning, with a final projected margin of Warnock by 2.5%. That’s with an estimated 53% in.

12:18pm Needle now giving Warnock a 71% chance to win and a 1.8% lead in its final results projections. Still a range of Walker by five to Warnock by nine.

12:01pm Needle so far says result could be between a seven-point win for Walker and a nine-point win for Warnock. Best estimate is Warnock by 0.8%.

11:54am The NY Times needle so far has Warnock barely ahead by 0.8% when all votes are counted. That would line up well with his November 0.9% margin, but be worse than the polls.

11:35am With 34% reporting according to CNN, Warnock leads by 61-39. This would be early votes so far.

9:59am Wednesday Late polls are good news for Dem Warnock, with two giving him a five-point lead and one from the Rep-aligned Trafalgar group giving him a four-point lead. I have an appointment, but will be back at 11:30am.

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, and his own website is here.

The United States November 8 midterm elections are not quite finished, as the Georgia Senate contest has gone to a runoff today, with polls closing at 11am Wednesday AEDT. At the November 8 election, Democrat Raphael Warnock won 49.4% and Republican Herschel Walker 48.5%. A Libertarian, with 2.1%, prevented a majority for either candidate, and so the runoff. Polls for the runoff suggest Warnock is narrowly ahead.

Democrats currently lead the Senate by 50-49. Even if Warnock loses, they will still control the Senate on Vice President Kamala Harris’ casting vote. But this election is important because Democrats face a very difficult Senate map in the 2024 elections.

Of the 33 Senate seats up for election in 2024, 23 are Democrat-held and just ten Republican-held. Democrat-held seats include three states – West Virginia, Montana and Ohio – that Donald Trump won easily in both 2016 and 2020. Democrats need to win Georgia next week to have a realistic chance of keeping the Senate after the 2024 elections.

At the November 8 election, Warnock took a big lead in early counting, but his lead fell back as the Election Day votes were counted. Walker led at various points, but late counting in Democratic areas gave Warnock a narrow win. If the result is close, I would not expect this contest to be called until Wednesday night AEDT.

NZ Labour has slid behind National in polls

The next New Zealand election will be held in late 2023. At the October 2020 election, Labour won a landslide, with 50.0% to 25.6% for the conservative National, 7.9% for the Greens and 7.6% for the right-wing ACT. At that election, PM Jacinda Ardern was assisted by her success at keeping COVID out of NZ.

NZ uses proportional representation with a 5% threshold, but parties under 5% can enter parliament by winning a single-member seat. The Maori party won two seats at the 2020 election on only 1.2% of votes.

National has now taken the lead, and the two most recent polls by media pollsters – Reid Research and Kantar Public – would give National and ACT combined a majority. Other polls suggest Labour could cling on with support from the Greens and the Maori party. Labour’s problems are probably due to the waning of the COVID boost and the rise of inflation.