Category: Victorian Election 2026

Two new state polls from Victoria, one being from RedBridge Group/Accent Research in yesterday’s Financial Review. It finds Labor steady on last month’s result at 24%, the Coalition up one to 30%, One Nation down one to 24% and the Greens up one to 16%. Labor trails the Coalition 56-44 on two-party preferred, but leads One Nation 55-45. Leadership ratings have Ben Carroll at 19% favourable (up five from August), 44% neutral (down 13) and 37% negative (up eight), and Jess Wilson at 35% favourable (up two), 47% neutral (steady) and 18% unfavourable (down two), with 28% favouring Wilson on preferred premier, 19% Carroll and 8% One Nation leader Warren Pickering. The poll was conducted October 2 to 8 from a sample of 1008.

The regular monthly Resolve Strategic poll in The Age is notable in recording a three-point uptick for the Greens to 15%, with the main contenders unchanged at Labor 25%, Coalition 28% and One Nation 23%. A three-way preferred premier question has everyone up – Ben Carroll by two points to 22%, Jess Wilson by one to 29% and One Nation’s Warren Pickering by six to 14%, with undecided down from 43% to 35%. The accompanying report has further results on the salience of various issues and the best party to handle them. The poll was conducted October 6 to 10 from a sample of 1000.

UPDATE (October 11): The Financial Review has published a RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll that has Labor steady on last month on 24%, the Coalition up one to 30%, One Nation down one to 24% and the Greens up one to 16%. Labor trails the Coalition 56-44 on two-party preferred, but leads One Nation 55-45. Leadership ratings have Ben Carroll at 19% favourable (up five from August), 44% neutral (down 13) and 37% negative (up eight), and Jess Wilson at 35% favourable (up two), 47% neutral (steady) and 18% unfavourable (down two), with 28% favouring Wilson on preferred premier, 19% Carroll and 8% One Nation leader Warren Pickering. The poll was conducted October 2 to 8 from a sample of 1008.

Developments from the last week or two on the Victorian election front:

• Roy Morgan has published a seat projection based on 7708 respondents surveyed since March, which seems notably strong for Labor at 40 seats, enough to hang on to power with the six seats attributed to the Greens. That leaves the Coalition with 31 and One Nation with 11. How this is determined is not entirely clear, although the report further details One Nation “winnability scores” for the 88 seats. These appear to measure their demographic correspondence with the party’s “core support base”, while also taking account of three-party ordering and estimated preference flows.

• The ABC reports Labor will not formalise candidates at the business end of its upper house tickets until October 21, with the more consequential positions to be decided a week before. Labor expects to be reduced to a single seat in almost every region, whereas it currently holds two in all but one. The Australian’s Victoria Ink column reports the Left is demanding an advance on its existing share of two top spots out of eight, leaving the Right having to “offer up one of their own to help square the ledger”. This consideration is separate from a deal in which Enver Erdogan, who was elected from second position in Northern Metropolitan in 2022, will swap positions with Tim McIntosh, who was elected from first in Eastern Victoria. The ABC report says Erdogan and McIntosh are from “separate subgroups within Labor’s broader Right faction”, Erdogan’s being the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

• Sumeyya Ilanbey of the Financial Review reports One Nation is pursuing a “hit list” of 20 seats, but also quotes an insider saying the party was in fact focused on “about six seats” amid fears it had “left its ground game too late”. The former consists of Labor-held Lara, Bendigo West, Bendigo East, Eureka, Sunbury, Melton, Yan Yean, Ripon, Hastings, Pakenham and Bass; Liberal-held Evelyn, Berwick and Benambra; and Nationals-held Gippsland East, Gippsland South, Murray Plains, Euroa, Morwell and Mildura. For those who can access it, the report also features seat-level party vote shares from an MRP poll RedBridge Group conducted for Trades Hall in June.

• The Australian’s Victoria Ink column reports it has obtained a letter in which Labor campaign director Steve Staikos says the party is “open to” a three-way leaders’ debate including One Nation’s Warren Pickering, noting that polling “has consistently pointed to a scenario where the Liberal Party would only be able to form government with One Nation’s support”.

The Herald Sun reports a DemosAU/PremierNational poll of Victorian state voting intention has the Coalition’s two-party lead over Labor narrowing from 55-45 to 52-48, from primary votes of Labor 25% (up two), Coalition 30% (down two), One Nation 20% (down two) and Greens 14% (up one). Ben Carroll’s personal ratings are up two for positive to 23%, down two for neutral to 40% and steady on 37% for negative; Jess Wilson’s are down two on positive to 33%, up one on neutral to 42% and up one on negative to 25%; and Warren Pickering’s ratings have responded only moderately to the recent elevation to his public profile, up three on positive to 22%, down five on neutral to 38% and up two on negative to 40%. The poll was conducted September 10 to 20 from a sample of 1020. A full report featuring detailed breakdowns should be on the pollster’s website later today.

UPDATE (1/10): The Herald-Sun today has a Freshwater Strategy poll that gives the Coalition a 53-47 lead on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Labor 24%, Coalition 29%, One Nation 22% and Greens 14%. A three-way preferred premier question has Jess Wilson at 37%, Ben Carroll at 30% and Warren Pickering at 13%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Monday from a sample of 1030.

I am also pleased to announce that the Poll Bludger’s Victorian election guide is now online, with all the customary features: tables, charts, interactive maps and analysis of all 88 lower house seats and eight upper house regions, plus a general overview of the electoral terrain and state politics generally over the past parliamentary term.

No less exciting is a new addition to the BludgerTrack poll aggregate that aims to make sense of the new electoral terrain by projecting outcomes for all 88 seats, based on modelling and the latest reading of the poll aggregate. To cut a long story short, the model is based largely on the relationship between federal and state election results in South Australia, the only case study so far of how voting patterns have changed since One Nation’s apparent transformation from minor to major party, together with Indigenous Voice referendum results (a pointer to strength for One Nation), data on outright home ownership (a pointer to the Liberals) and whether the seat has a Coalition incumbent (which appeared to be a relevant factor in the seats where the Liberals held out against One Nation in South Australia). If this approach proves its worth, I may end up applying it to the federal context.

The seat projection currently suggests Labor will be copping it at both ends, losing exactly enough seats to the Coalition to give the latter a bare majority of 45 seats while also bearing almost the entire brunt of One Nation’s 15 seat haul, in contrast to South Australia where Labor’s primary vote was 37.5% as compared with BludgerTrack Victoria’s current estimate of 25.2%. The former includes what would undoubtedly be some surprise Liberal gains in Melbourne, including Albert Park, Eltham and not least the Premier’s seat of Niddrie, with the very considerable qualification that the model makes little allowance for candidates’ personal votes. One Nation is credited with a new empire extending from Melbourne’s outer north and west through the Ballarat seats to Ripon, along with scattered gains elsewhere. UPDATE: A correction/revision to the model has made its projection less rosy for the Coalition, who are now at only 38 seats.