William Bowe - The Poll Bludger

Hungarian election day

Viktor Orbán faces his sternest challenge after 16 years in office at today’s Hungarian election.

One of the year’s most consequential elections is being held overnight Australian time in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party are fighting to remain in power after 16 years in office. His rival is Péter Magyar of the Tisza party, a former government insider who held senior roles in state-owned companies but broke with Fidesz two years ago amid a scandal over presidential pardons. Both contenders are identified with the political right, but Magyar’s promise of a reorientation toward a pro-NATO and European Union line stands in contrast to Orbán, whose regime has been distinguished in recent years by indulgence towards Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine, together with an wide-ranging illiberalism that has won the favour of the Donald Trump and a visit from J.D. Vance this week to endorse his campaign.

The manifestations of the latter include a skewing of electoral laws in Fidesz’s favour, including by allowing ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries to vote and letting them do so by post, of which at least 90% are cast for Fidesz, boosting them by a couple of percentage points in terms of national vote share. The Economist’s modelling suggests Tisza would need to outpoll Fidesz by 4.3% to have a better than even chance of securing a parliamentary majority, whereas Fidesz would need to trail by more than 2.0% to be a better than even chance of going into minority. The changes to the constitution, electoral rules, the judiciary and media regulation overseen by Orbán’s regime have required a two-thirds majority.

This post is going live just as polls close at 3am eastern Australian time, and the broad outline of the result seems likely to be clear by the time most of you read this. Polling has been radically variable depending on whether the pollster in question has been aligned with Fidesz: according to tracking conducted by The Economist, such polling has had Fidesz and its allies six or seven points ahead, whereas opposition-aligned or neutral polling has given Tisza a double-digit lead. What is already clear at the time of writing is that turnout is well up on 2022: 38% had voted as of 11am local time, with polls closing at 7pm, as compared with 26% at the same point in 2022.

Weekend federal miscellany (open thread)

Matt Canavan fails to improve on his loseable position on the Queensland Senate ticket; Anthony Albanese knocks talk of an imminent expansion of parliament on the head; and much else besides.

I’ve spent the last week or two scouring media that had gone unattended during the South Australian election, so I’ve got a huge amount of verbiage to unload over the coming week or so. This will include lengthy round-ups of news from New South Wales and (especially) Victoria as soon as I have poll results to attach them to, and dedicated posts on the Victorian state by-election for Nepean on May 2 (for which the ballot paper draw was conducted yesterday) and the Farrer federal by-election a week later.

For starters, here’s the federal electoral news that’s unrelated to Farrer:

• New Nationals leader Matt Canavan has been left
stranded in the uncomfortable second position on the Queensland Liberal National Party’s Senate ticket for the next election. State council declined to deviate from the established practice of allocating the top position to a Liberal, in this case James McGrath, who retained the position in the face of a challenge from former Petrie MP Luke Howarth. There remain suggestions that Canavan might end up running for the lower house seat of Capricornia, where Michelle Landry is expected to retire. Third on the ticket is Adam Stoker, solicitor and husband of former Senator and now state MP Amanda Stoker. Another nominee for the third position was Joanna Lindgren, who had a year-long stint in the Senate in 2015 and 2016. However, The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column relates that the party’s applicant review committee rejected her due to “posts to her private Facebook page”, which had not been a problem for her last year when she ran for the lower house seat of Blair.

• Anthony Albanese told parliament last week that he was “satisfied with the current number of seats in the House of Representatives”, after reports in February that Special Minister of State Don Farrell was holding talks with other parties about an expansion. Nine Newspapers reports Albanese “left the door open to making changes after the election, and also did not rule out adding Senators in the NT and ACT”.

• The distraction of the South Australian election meant that I didn’t pay it enough attention at the time, but the DemosAU MRP poll from a month or so offered some highly detailed breakdowns from its bumper sample of 8484, together with its headline seat projection of Labor 83, One Nation 52, Coalition nine, Greens one and others five. This includes a finding that around 55% of Coalition voters from 2025 who are over 35, live in rural and regional areas and didn’t finish high school now support One Nation, as do an even half in outer metropolitan areas. The equivalent figures for Labor are a bit under half that. Modelled party vote estimates find the Liberals gaining seats from Labor and teals in Sydney and (especially) Melbourne, while losing nearly everything they currently hold to One Nation, who get ten seats from Labor besides.

• Fox & Hedgehog has published a review of its performance at the South Australian state election, which modestly assesses that its performance did not quite match YouGov’s while equalling DemosAU’s and outpointing Newspoll’s, though all four in fact did more than adequately. Contrary to conventional understandings of social desirability bias in polling, seemingly too many respondents are reported having voted for One Nation in 2025. This is matched by under-reporting of past vote for other right-wing minor parties, suggesting that many had in fact voted for Trumpet of Patriots or the like.

• Clive Palmer, who finally appeared to give up after last year’s election, said last month he would contest the Gold Coast seat of Fadden at the next election as part of what will resume being called the United Australia Party.

• James Massola of the Sydney Morning Herald related last month that former Liberal MP and state party president Jason Falinski, who lost his Sydney seat of Mackellar to teal independent Sophie Scamps in 2022 and did not recontest in 2025, was “widely expected” to contest the seat at the next election.

• Former Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, whose seat of Menzies was swamped in the unexpectedly forceful metropolitan wave in 2025, offers an impeccably data-driven analysis of the party’s electoral woes.

• Political science academic Murray Goot argues against the notion, often claimed by its champions, that compulsory voting is a moderating influence on Australian politics.

• I presented the case against first-past-the-post during an appearance on Perth radio station 6PR on Tuesday.

Finally, in non-federal news, a third by-election is on the horizon following the death on Thursday of Jimmy Sullivan, leaving vacant the inner northern Brisbane seat of Stafford. Sullivan won the seat for Labor in 2020 and 2024, retaining a 5.3% margin on the latter occasion in the face of a 6.6% swing to the LNP. He was suspended from the Labor caucus shortly after the election and expelled in May 2025 amid a reported domestic violence incident, for which no charges were laid.

Federal polls: YouGov, Roy Morgan, RedBridge Group (open thread)

Two polls apiece from YouGov and Roy Morgan, plus a big one from RedBridge Group.

The fortnightly Sky News Pulse poll by YouGov has Labor up a point to 30%, the Coalition up one to 20%, One Nation down two to 25% and the Greens steady on 13%. Labor holds two-party leads of 55-45 over both the Coalition and One Nation. Anthony Albanese is up a point on approval to 39% and down two on disapproval to 55%, while Angus Taylor improves not inconsiderably with a four-point increase in approval to 38% and a three-point drop in disapproval to 39%. Albanese leads 44-36 on preferred prime minister, out from 43-37. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to this Tuesday from a sample of 1500.

The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor up half a point to 30.5%, the Coalition up one-and-a-half to 24%, One Nation down two to 21.5%, and the Greens down one-and-a-half to 12%. In Labor-versus-Coalition terms, the poll finds Labor leading 56-44 based on previous election and 53.5-46.5 on respondent-allocated preferences (the latter measure has on average had Labor a point higher since the last election). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1411.

Roy Morgan also had an SMS poll recording an 83-17 split in favour of the government’s decision to cut fuel excise on petrol and diesel, although there was a 64-36 split against the government on satisfaction of its management of the shortage. Respondents were also invited to provide open-ended responses as to who they blamed and why, which you can read about in very great detail in an accompanying report. This poll was conducted March 26 to April 1 from a sample of 2514.

A poll I missed last Thursday was a RedBridge Group/Accent Research “super-poll” of 5563 respondents in the Financial Review. It was slightly dated in having been conducted from March 6 to 19, and did not feature a national headline result, its raison d’etre being breakdowns with significant samples. I will add the results later today from the four largest states and by age, gender, language, housing tenure and past vote to the BludgerTrack poll data archive, and stick here to the bits it’s unable to accommodate. Kos Samaras of RedBridge Group has published a cross-tabulation for generation by financial stress to illustrate the point that stressed older voters are voting One Nation while their younger equivalents are voting Greens, a point he elaborated on in an accompanying analysis piece.

My own favourite cross-tabulation is age-by-gender, which offers a too-rare look at one of the most striking electoral phenomena of our time, namely the pronounced gender gap that has developed among young voters. Among “Gen-Z” men, Labor is on 39%, the Coalition 12%, One Nation 19% and the Greens 24%; among women, Labor is on 26%, the Coalition 14%, One Nation 11% and the Greens 38%. The pattern is reflected in lesser degree among “millennials”, the result for men being Labor 36%, Coalition 16%, One Nation 26% and Greens 13%, and for women Labor 28%, Coalition 19%, One Nation 27% and Greens 15%. For “Gen-X” men, Labor is on 32%, the Coalition 18%, One Nation 35% and the Greens 6%; for women, Labor 29%, the Coalition 21%, One Nation 31% and Greens 9%. Among “baby boomer” men, Labor is on 27%, the Coalition 30%, One Nation 31% and the Greens 4%; among women, Labor 33%, the Coalition 24%, One Nation 32% and the Greens 3%.

The poll also asked four questions of the 491 respondents who said they would vote One Nation. Seventy per cent agreed their choice was a “tactic to make the major parties listen to ordinary Australians”, with only 18% disagreeing. However, 65% felt it “important to elect qualified leaders, even if we don’t always agree with them”, with 14% disagreeing. Fifty-four per cent felt “almost anything is better than the way things are going now, I just want to vote for change”, with 24% disagreeing.

The Australia Institute has an unrelated YouGov poll (hat-tip to Nadia in comments), conducted March 12 to 19 from a sample of 1502, as part of its campaign for a gas exports tax but encompassing voting intention. The result includes an undistributed 8% “don’t know” component, with the rest being Labor 26%, Coalition 19%, One Nation 24% and Greens 12%. The full report features breakdowns by state, age and gender. It also finds 60% agreeing that Australia exports too much gas, with only 10% disagreeing.

Newspoll quarterly breakdowns: January to March (open thread)

Polling breakdowns find One Nation leading the primary vote in Queensland, and recording remarkably consistent support among a range of demographic categories.

The Australian has published the quarterly Newspoll aggregate for January to March, providing breakdowns from substantial samples for at least the larger of the mainland states along with various demographic categories (UPDATE: Full tables here). The national One Nation vote over this period was 25% compared with 14% for the previous quarter, so naturally there are radical movements across the board. Labor’s national vote was 32% across the quarter, with the Coalition running third on 20%.

The most striking result is that One Nation leads on the primary vote in Queensland with 30%, compared with 27% for Labor and 23% for the Coalition, which is consistent with what the BludgerTrack breakdown for Queensland was already showing. One Nation’s gains come about equally at the expense of Labor and the Coalition in the three largest states, but more so at the Coalition’s expense in Western Australia and South Australia, the small-sample result in the latter case reducing the Coalition to 13%.

Breakdowns by age show Labor dropping by between four and seven points among each of the three cohorts with the exception of 65-plus, where they have only dropped a point, with the result that Labor’s vote share ranges only from 30% to 33% across the four. Conversely, the drop in Coalition support ranges only from five to seven points, leaving intact a clear progression from 14% among 18-to-34 to 26% among 65-plus. One Nation is at 27% or 28% among all cohorts except 18-to-34, where it records 19%. The Greens have been hardly touched by the convulsion, maintaining their characteristic pattern of 26% support among 18-to-34 to 3% among 65-plus.

The only significant gender gap remains higher support for the Greens among women than men, at 14% and 10% respectively, balanced by 30% and 34% support for Labor rather than a distinction between left and right. Support for One Nation is remarkably even across the four income cohorts, ranging only from 23% among those on $150,000 or more to 29% among those on $50,000 or less. One Nation even records 19% among non-English speakers, as compared with 29% who speak only English at home. The party leads among Christians with 31%, compared with 28% for Labor and 24% for the Coalition.

Federal polls: Morgan and Essential Research (open thread)

A lift for Labor in the latest Roy Morgan poll, which probably says more about the series’ variability than the impact of recent events.

I have two poll results to relate, plus a plug for a reupholstered BludgerTrack, where you will now find distinct series under “leadership ratings” for the Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor eras, if eras isn’t too big a word (which it is).

• The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor up three points to 30%, the Coalition down three to 22.5%, One Nation steady on 23.5% and the Greens steady on 13.5%. Labor’s two-party lead is out from 52.5-47.5 to 56.5-43.5 on previous election preferences, and from 51-49 to 54.5-45.5 on respondent-allocated preferences. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1562.

• I missed the latest monthly Essential Research poll last week due to preoccupation with the South Australian election. It had Labor up a point to 31%, the Coalition down two to 24%, One Nation up two to 24% (reaching parity with the Coalition for the first time in this series) and the Greens down a point to 10%. The 2PP+ measure shifted from 48-47 in favour of the Coalition to 47-46, these two being the only two-party poll results of any sort since the May 2025 election to have the Coalition ahead. Anthony Albanese was down three on approval to 39% and up three on disapproval to 51%, while Angus Taylor recorded an above-par debut of 35% approval and 33% disapproval. Further questions focused on foreign affairs, including findings that 26% supported and 42% opposed to the US-Israeli military action against Iran, and 34% supported and 26% opposed Australia’s response. The poll was conducted March 18 to 23 from a sample of 1008.

South Australian election late counting: week two

Another progressively updated post tracking late counting in seats in doubt from the South Australian election.

Click here for full display of South Australian election results.

Thursday night

Casey Briggs at the ABC relates that a recount (presumably as distinct from a preference distribution) has ended with One Nation’s Chantelle Thomas 58 votes clear of Liberal candidate Tania Stock in Narungga, compared with 77 votes in the initial count. However, there’s no sign of this on the ECSA site or in the results feed, so my system isn’t rating this as called. MacKillop on the other hand moves to “ON GAIN” status with the publication of a preference distribution confirming a 403-vote winning margin for James Virgo over Liberal candidate Rebekah Rosser.

Wednesday night

Most seats have preference distributions now, today’s highlight being confirmation of the Liberal win in Heysen, where the Greens fell 99 votes short of demoting Labor to third place and maybe winning on their preferences, though presumably we’ll never know. As it stands, Liberal incumbent Josh Teague retained the seat at the final count by 347 votes over Labor. Labor’s win in Morphett was confirmed by a distribution that gave their candidate, Toby Priest, a 306 margin over Liberal incumbent Stephen Patterson. Labor ended up retaining Light by 787 votes, a margin of 1.6%, where my system was still giving One Nation the faintest slither of a chance because it had no way of knowing the count was in fact over.

That leaves two seats without preference distributions that my system is not yet calling for essentially the same reason, which look like being the third and fourth seats for One Nation. As noted yesterday, the Liberal candidate has conceded defeat in MacKillop, where One Nation leads the two-candidate count by 383 after one last loose end got tied up today, which is assuredly too much to be disturbed by the emergence of any anomalies in the preference distribution. Nothing today from Narungga, where One Nation has ended the count with a 77-vote lead that will win the seat unless the preference distribution turns up something like a 50-vote bundle having been put in the wrong pile.

Tuesday night

A Facebook post by One Nation candidate Chantelle Thomas says he has won the count in Narungga by 71 votes, though the media feed has no update on her 77-vote lead at the end of yesterday. There were minor changes from rechecking in Heysen, but no change in Morphett or MacKillop.

Peter Malinauskas’s seat of Croydon has become the second seat after Finniss to report a full preference distribution, and it had the Liberal candidate dropping out before both One Nation and the Greens, with Malinauskas winning over the Greens candidate at the final count by a 24.0% margin. The One Nation preference exclusion split 61.7-28.3 in favour of Labor over the Greens: a bit over 20% of these votes were Liberal first preferences that flowed to One Nation, which would have boosted the flow to Labor to the extent that these voters were following the Liberal how-to-vote card.

Monday night

One Nation gained breathing room in the final stages of the count for Narungga: a batch of polling day declaration votes broke 44-18 their way, early voting declaration votes broke 23-15, and they gained 17 votes on rechecking, increasing their lead from 26 to 77. The week-long blockage in the MacKillop count finally cleared today, shortly after Liberal candidate Rebekah Rosser conceded defeat based on scrutineers’ reports. The 5526 votes of various types that were added broke almost evenly, with the One Nation lead narrowing from 428 to 380. My system isn’t giving it away, but as in a few other cases, it no doubt would be if it did not have a conservative over-estimate of the number of outstanding votes.

What Kevin Bonham describes as a “pro-Liberal Twitter account” claims a sample of One Nation’s preference flow had 62% going to Liberal, 23% to the Greens and 15% to Labor. In the absence of any better information to go on, I have implemented these numbers in my system in place of my previous guess of 50%, 29% and 21%, which was based on federal election preference flows and no doubt failed to account sufficiently for the impact of the Liberal how-to-vote card. However, it hasn’t actually made much difference to my projection, as the balance between the Greens and Labor is little changed, and the main question is which of the two makes the final count against the Liberal. Around 5% of the vote is tied up five other candidates, and my preference estimates collectively give them a fairly even three-way split. So far as it allowing for the possibility that Labor might win, this clearly isn’t going to happen: the two-candidate count has the Liberals leading by 239 (narrowing from 288 after the addition of 491 votes of various types since Saturday), and my system is allowing for nearly 800 votes outstanding when the actual number will be either zero or very close to it.

Finniss became the first seat to report a full preference distribution, and it confirmed that independent Lou Nicholson won the seat from only the fourth highest primary vote share. The exclusion of lower order candidates, notably the Greens, was enough to push her ahead of both One Nation and Labor, both of whose preferences (though especially Labor’s) heavily favoured her, giving her a 5.2% winning margin at the last.

Sunday night

With the curious exception of MacKillop, which has been pretty much stalled for the past week, counting for the close seats in South Australia is at a stage advanced enough that serious doubt remains only about Narungga, which might provide a fourth seat for One Nation (assuming those uncounted votes in MacKillop don’t erase their 428-vote lead) or a sixth for the Liberals. There is also the theoretical chance that the Greens could sneak into the last count in Heysen and pull off a late upset at the Liberals’ expense, but those with better information than myself do not expect this. My system is not quite calling Light, though I have no doubt it would be if its read on how many votes are outstanding wasn’t erring on the high side, or Morphett, which the ABC is calling for Labor on the basis of what I assume is better information than my own.

The race in Narungga keeps getting closer, the latest stroke in the Liberals’ favour being a correction to the result of the Kadina early voting centre that cut 21 votes from One Nation’s two-candidate count, reducing their lead from 47 to 26. I am unclear if any further rechecking remains before the full preference count, or if some last batch of late-arriving postals remains to be added to the count. Polling day declaration votes were added yesterday (meaning Sunday) in Morphett, which increased Labor’s lead from 261 to 290 – this was the only vote type for which no votes had been reported, and it may be that that’s all there is. If anything remains at all, it likely amounts to less than the size of Labor’s current lead.

Aside from the resolution to the mystery of MacKillop, remaining points of interest are whether any anomalies show up in the full distribution of preferences, which I’m told will begin for some seats today, and the resolution of the result for the Legislative Council. I’ve been paying no attention at all to the latter, but looks very much like being Labor five, One Nation three, Liberal two and Greens one.

Federal polls: Newspoll, RedBridge Group, Fox & Hedgehog (open thread)

New federal polls reach variable conclusions as to exactly how badly the Coalition is doing relative to One Nation.

Three new polls of federal voting intention:

• The Australian reports the first Newspoll in four weeks has Labor down a point to 31%, the Coalition up one to 21%, One Nation down one to 26% and the Greens up one to 12%. Anthony Albanese is down one on approval to 39% and up two on disapproval to 57%, while Angus Taylor is down two to 35% and up one to 42%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 45-37 to 44-36. As with other recent Newspoll results showing One Nation leading the Coalition, no two-party preferred result is provided. The poll was conducted Monday to Thursday from a sample of 1232.

• The monthly RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll for the Financial Review sets new records for One Nation, up a point to 29%, and the Coalition, down two to 17%, with Labor steady on 32% and the Greens up one to 13%. Labor holds two-party leads over both One Nation and the Coalition of 53-47, respectively in from 54-46 and steady. Anthony Albanese’s favourable rating is down three to 29% and his unfavourable rating is up one to 46%; Angus Taylor is steady on 19% and up two to 22% (24% had not heard of him, only one point down on a month ago); and Pauline Hanson is up two to 38% and up three to 43%. A three-way preferred prime minister question has Albanese down a point to 33%, Taylor up four to 14% and Hanson steady on 23%. The poll finds 61% holding Donald Trump most responsible for rising petrol prices compared with 14% for Anthony Albanese and 16% for neither. It was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1003.

• The monthly Fox & Hedgehog poll for the News Corp tabloids has Labor steady on 30%, the Coalition down one to 23%, One Nation down two to 23% and the Greens up one to 13%. The pollster’s three-party preferred measure has Labor up two to 46%, the Coalition steady on 27% and One Nation down two to 27%. Labor’s two-party lead over the Coalition is unchanged at 51-49, and its lead over One Nation is out from 53-47 to 56-44. Anthony Albanese is down two on approval to 30% and up two on disapproval to 49%, Angus Taylor is down two to 24% and up one to 24%, and Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 40-35 to 39-35. The government’s handling of the fuel crisis is rated good by 18% and poor by 57%, but 55% hold disruption from war in the Middle East as the factor most responsible compared with 24% for the federal government and 15% for stations and suppliers. The full release has regular personal ratings on a range of political figures other than the two leaders. The poll was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday from a sample of 1810.

The Australia Institute also has polls from three teal seats conducted as part of its campaign for a gas exports tax. When a forced-response follow-up for the initially undecided is included, the results are as follows:

• In Kooyong, independent Monique Ryan 29.7%, Liberals 34.8%; One Nation 13.4%; Labor 12.8% and Greens 5.7%. A respondent-allocated two-candidate preferred result has Ryan and the Liberals at 50-50. The poll was conducted March 17 and 18 from a sample of 1184.

• In Mackellar, independent Sophie Scamps 31.4%, Liberal 25.0%, One Nation 21.7%, Labor 14.7%, Greens 4.7%, with Scamps holding a 56.7-43.3 two-party lead over the Liberals. The poll was conducted March 17 to 19 from a sample of 1046.

• In Wentworth, independent Allegra Spender 30.6%, Liberal 25.7%, One Nation 16.3%, Labor 16.4%, Greens 7.9%, with Spender holding a 59.4-40.6 two-party lead over the Liberals. The poll was conducted March 17 to 19 from a sample of 1190.

South Australian federal draft redistribution

A new name for the seat of Grey, but otherwise not much change from a proposed new seat of South Australian federal electoral boundaries.

Draft boundaries have been published for a redistribution of South Australia’s federal electoral boundaries, following less than a month on from Tasmanian and Australian Capital Territory drafts together with a Queensland state redistribution that have all unhelpfully coincided with the South Australian state election. Below are my estimates of party vote shares on the proposed new boundaries. A row below the bold results for each seats shows the changes from the 2025 election result, where changes there have been — so Adelaide, Hindmarsh and Sturt are being left as is. The changes elsewhere have been fairly modest as well. It is proposed that the regional seat of Grey be renamed O’Donoghue, which is not reflected in the table.

I neglected to comment on the ACT redistribution proposal when it was published a fortnight ago, but the changes are of minor significance, as is usually the case in the ACT when the number of seats doesn’t change. I will add my revised margins to this post if and when I get time.

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