Category: NSW Election 2019

Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor in New South Wales

A small sample New South Wales poll adds to an overall picture of both major parties being so subdued on the primary vote as to make the final outcome anyone’s guess.

The Guardian reported yesterday on a poll of state voting intention in New South Wales from Essential Research, with a small sample of 544. The poll had the primary votes at 39% for the Coalition, 36% for Labor, 10% for the Greens and 8% for One Nation, with Labor recording a 51-49 lead on two-party preferred. However, the latter figure, however it was derived, would have to be regarded as highly speculative, given the wild cards of One Nation’s preference flows and the rate of exhausted votes under optional preferential voting.

I wouldn’t normally make a post out of a poll with such a small sample, but with an election five weeks away I’ll take what I can get. While I’m about it, I’ll take the opportunity to promote the Poll Bludger’s vast state election guide, to which a permanent link can be found on the sidebar. It features a poll trend measure to which the Essential result has just been added – to very little effect, since its results are very similar to what the trend was already been showing (and it was given a low weighting, reflecting the small sample).

New South Wales election guide

Introducing the Poll Bludger’s New South Wales election guide – including, together with much else, a poll trend measure pointing to a tight race.

The Poll Bludger’s guide to the New South Wales state election is now open for business. It offers:

• Ninety-three finely tooled electorate profiles, including historical background, demographic analysis and many a tale of preselection bloodletting, to say nothing of the usual panoply of charts, tables and booth results maps;

• A Legislative Council guide that you are encouraged not to neglect, because sorting through all that lot was a nightmare;

• A comprehensive overview of the situation;

• A poll trend feature.

The latter shows Labor with a 51.1-48.9 lead on two-party preferred, but that’s probably a mite generous to them, as the “others” pool looks to have swollen with defectors from the Coalition to One Nation. No primary vote trend measure for One Nation is available, but it’s telling that the Coalition is down 8.3% on the primary vote and Labor up only 1.7%.

Needless to say, all this involved a fair bit of effort – if you think it worth rewarding, you are encouraged to give the PressPatron donation facility at the top of the page a workout, through which either one-off or monthly donations are always very greatly appreciated.