Newspoll breakdowns: October to December (open thread)

New polling data suggests Labor has slipped among Victorians, women and low-to-middle income earners.

As well as test cricket, Boxing Day customarily brings Newspoll’s quarterly aggregated breakdowns in The Australian, this one combining 3775 responses over three polls from October 7 to December 6. The state results have it at 50-50 in New South Wales, after the Coalition led 51-49 last time, suggesting a Coalition swing of around 1.5% compared with the 2022 election; 50-50 in Victoria after Labor led 52-48 last time, a Coalition swing of around 5%; a Coalition lead of 53-47 in Queensland, in from 54-48, a Labor swing of around 1%; a Labor lead of 54-46 in Western Australia, out from 52-48 last time, a Coalition swing of around 1%; and Labor leading 53-47 in South Australia, in from 54-46 last time, a Coalition swing of around 1%. The gender gap disappears, with 50-50 results for both men and women, compared with 51-49 to the Coalition among men and 52-48 to Labor among women last time. A 54-46 lead to Labor last time in the $50,000 to $99,000 income bracket becomes 50-50 this time, while a 54-46 lead to the Coalition among those on over $150,000 reduces to 51-49.

Yuletide miscellany: more duelling pendulums, plus preselection and by-election latest (open thread)

The Australian Electoral Commission joins the redistribution wonk party with its own set of estimated margins for the looming federal election.

The Australian Electoral Commission has published its post-redistribution margins for New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, holding off for the time being on the Northern Territory as the redistribution there has not been finalised. This involves two sets of numbers: two-party preferred, which boil the issue down to Labor-versus-Coalition without regard to whether Greens or independents may have been in the mix, and two-candidate preferred, which tackles the sometimes knotty issue of estimating new margins between the parties and independents who actually made the final count at the last election.

The AEC’s report repeatedly observes that its numbers “may differ to the calculations of people external to the AEC”, by which they principally mean Antony Green but also me and Ben Raue at The Tally Room. Links to an extensive accounting of my own estimated margins were provided in an earlier post, which also offered a broad overview of the principles involved in making the calculations. I’m pleased to say my two-party margins are similar to the AEC’s: within 0.2% in 80 seats out of 100, and out by more than 0.5% only in the cases of Hume and Hasluck.

Now more than ever though, two-candidate preferred is a vexed question particularly where independents are involved, as they will not have been on the ballot paper in the parts of the electorate that have been added in the redistribution. Antony, Ben and I are all free to exercise common sense in treating the teals as a collective unit, which at least solves the problem in the cases of Warringah and Mackellar. Not only does the AEC feel it does not have the liberty to make such judgements, but Ben Raue also relates that its system is not designed to combine Labor-versus-Greens results from different electorates, which can readily be used to calculate fresh margins for Wills and Cooper — though not for Melbourne, which absorbs territory from Higgins and Macnamara, both of which had Labor-versus-Liberal two-candidate counts.

Ben Raue identifies the following electorates as ones in which mismatched two-candidate preferred counts must be combined from different parts of the electorate as redrawn by the redistributions (not counting those where the problem can be solved by falling back on two-party preferred, as can always be done where the seat is a “classic” Labor-versus-Coalition contest). These are Bradfield, Fowler, Grayndler, Mackellar, Sydney, Warringah and Wentworth in New South Wales, and Cooper, Goldstein, Kooyong, Melbourne, Nicholls, Wannon and Wills in Victoria. For reasons just explained, people external to the AEC are painlessly able to finesse the issue in Mackellar, Warringah, Bradfield, Cooper and Wills, which undoubtedly makes the non-AEC calculations more instructive in these cases. That leaves nine seats where varying degrees of creativity are required. In Labor-versus-Greens contests, this is a simple matter of estimating preference flows. But estimating support levels for independents in areas where they didn’t run last time is a very considerable challenge.

The differences in the various approaches taken are outlined at length in Antony Green’s post on the subject:

I base my estimates on a comparison of of House and Senate votes. Ben Raue uses an estimate based on the difference between two-party and two-candidate preferred results. William Bowe has not tried to adjust primary votes but rather allocates zero votes to the Independent and applies preference flows on accumulated primaries.

The chief virtue of my own method is the elegance involved in not requiring any data external to how people actually voted for the lower house of 2022, but it comes at the very substantial cost of crediting independents with very small vote shares in the newly added parts of their seats. However, the AEC’s approach is in this respect worse, as it apparently credits the independents with no votes in these areas at all (though I don’t see how that can be the case in Kooyong, where my own estimate for Monique Ryan is lower than the AEC’s). Antony Green’s and Ben Raue’s methods are of more practical value in addressing the task at hand, which is estimating how big the swing will need to be for the seat to change hands. Whether or not this is happening can be determined on election night by comparing the booths that have reported their results with the equivalent results from the previous election.

A few other bits and pieces from the last week or so:

• A second Victorian state by-election looms to go with the one to be held on February 8 in Prahran after Tim Pallas announced his resignation as Treasurer and member for Werribee, which he held in 2022 on a margin of 10.5%. The Age reports the Labor preselection front-runner is John Lister, a local teacher and Country Fire Authority volunteer.

• DemosAU has a poll on the ban on social media use for under-16s, which finds 64% supportive and only 24% opposed, but 53% expecting the law will be ineffective compared with only 34% for effective. The poll was conducted December 5 to 16 from a sample of 809.

• Keith Pitt, who has held the Bundaberg region seat of Hinkler for the Nationals since 2013, has announced he will retire at the election, taking the opportunity to call for the party to abandon net zero emissions targets and support coal-fired power. There has been no indication that I can see of who might succeed him in Hinkler.

• The Nationals have preselected Alison Penfold, senior adviser to party leader David Littleproud and former chief executive of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, to succeed the retiring David Gillespie in the Mid North Coast New South Wales seat of Lyne. Penfold won preselection ahead of Melinda Pavey, former state member for the upper house and the corresponding lower house seat of Oxley, and Forster accountant Terry Murphy.

• Left-aligned Ashvini Ambihaipahar, St Vincent de Paul Society regional director, Georges River councillor and unsuccessful candidate for Oatley at last year’s state election, has been confirmed by Labor’s national executive as candidate for the southern Sydney seat of Barton, to be vacated at the election with the retirement of Linda Burney. One of those overlooked, former state upper house member Shaoquett Moselmane, resigned from a party position in protest, Elizabeth Pike of the St George Shire Standard reporting rumours he may run as an independent.

• James O’Doherty of the Daily Telegraph reports that Warren Mundine will seek Liberal preselection for the northern Sydney seat of Bradfield, to be vacated at the election with the retirement of David Fletcher and contested again by teal independent Nicolette Boele, who came within 4.2% after preferences in 2022. Mundine is a former Labor national president turned conservative who ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in Gilmore in 2022, and was the public face of the campaign against the Indigenous Voice together with Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price.

• Slightly old news now, but it had hitherto escaped my notice that Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Labor member for the abolished Melbourne seat of Higgins, will be making do with third position on the party’s Victorian Senate ticket.

NSW state polls: Resolve Strategic and RedBridge Group

Two more New South Wales state polls crediting the Minns government with unconvincing leads on two-party preferred.

Two concluding New South Wales state polls for the year, neither exactly hot off the press:

• Nine Newspapers’ Resolve Monitor feature has been updated with the bi-monthly state poll result, which doesn’t seem to have been reported on in the pages of Sydney Morning Herald. This has the Coalition steady on 37%, Labor up one to 33%, the Greens steady on 11% and independents down one to 13%, suggesting a Labor lead of around 51-49 on two-party preferred. Chris Minns leads Mark Speakman 35-17 as preferred premier, in from 37-14. The poll combines the New South Wales components of Resolve Strategic’s last two monthly surveys, with a combined sample of 1000.

• As noted here previously, there was a RedBridge Group poll a fortnight ago that had credited Labor with a 50.5-49.5 two-party lead, from primary votes of Labor 37%, Coalition 41% and Greens 9% (down from 9.7%). The poll was also conducted November 6 to 20, from a sample of 1088.

Federal polls: Essential Research and Roy Morgan (open thread)

Little festive cheer for Labor in what may be the last two federal opinion polls of the year.

Two more pollsters get their last results in for the year, one being the fortnightly Essential Research series, which has Labor down two to 30%, the Coalition steady on 35%, the Greens up two to 13% and One Nation down two to 6%, with the undecided component steady at 5%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure is unchanged at Coalition 48%, Labor 47% and undecided 5%. Also included are the monthly leadership ratings which have Anthony Albanese down four on approval to 39%, his worst result of the term, with disapproval up two to an equal worst 50%. Peter Dutton is up two on approval to 44% and steady on 41% disapproval. A montly question on national direction reverses an improvement last month, with a four point drop in right direction to 31% and three point increase in wrong direction to 51%. The full report features a number of further questions in that vein. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1151.

The weekly Roy Morgan series, which may prove an exception to the rule of pollsters taking a break over Christmas and New Year, gives Labor its worst result of the term with a half-point drop on the primary vote to 27.5% while the Coalition gains three to 41%, with the Greens down half to 12.5% and One Nation down one-and-a-half to 5%. The headline two-party measure is unchanged on 52-48, but Labor does uncommonly well out of its respondent-allocated preference flow: the alternative measure based on 2022 election flows, which is invariably more favourable for Labor, has the Coalition leading 51.5-48.5 after a 50-50 result last time. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1672.

Freshwater Strategy: 51-49 to Coalition (open thread)

One of the final polls for the year records no change in voting intention from a month ago.

The Financial Review reports the final monthly Freshwater Strategy poll for the year (no link as of yet) has voting intention results identical to last time, with the Coalition leading 51-49 from primary votes of Labor 30%, Coalition 40%, Greens 14% and others 16%. Anthony Albanese is at 34% approval and 51% disapproval, up one on both counts, while Peter Dutton is steady on 37% and down one to 40%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister widens from 44-43 to 46-43, but a suite of questions on the leaders’ attributes produces better results for Dutton, including a 44% to 31% lead for being a strong leader. The poll was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1051.

UPDATE: Presumably paywalled report here. The poll finds 48% expect the Coalition to win the election, 18% in majority and 29% in minority, compared with 39% for Labor, 25% in minority and 14% in majority.

Weekend miscellany: duelling pendulums, Tasmanian seat polling and more (open thread)

Summarising federal redistributions ahead of the looming election, polling pointing to a status quo result in Tasmania’s federal seats, and various other electoral news.

Antony Green has published a pendulum display of post-redistribution seat margins for the federal election along with some explanation of what this entails. He did so exactly as I was finalising my own parallel effort, which I present here in the shape of a mock-up of the entry page for the federal election guide I’m hoping to publish around mid-January (a Western Australian election guide will precede it by a couple of weeks).

The margins shown are simply those from the 2022 election where no redistribution has been conducted, but the redistributions for New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory require a process of distributing the votes from 2022 across the redrawn electorates. The Northern Territory redistribution is still in the public consultation phase, but I have taken a punt on the proposed boundaries (in this case simply a matter of drawing the line between Solomon and Lingiari) being adopted as they seem impossible to argue with, and it appears Antony Green has reached the same conclusion.

I believe the redistribution calculation methods used by Antony and I are identical with respect to how they handle ordinary votes, (i.e. those cast on election day or at pre-poll voting centres), but we have presumably adopted different methods to deal with the difficult question of “non-static” vote types, such as postals, which are published in aggregate for the whole electorate with no indication of geographic variation. I haven’t crunched the numbers too thoroughly, but the biggest anomaly I can see is that we have landed 0.5% apart in the substantially redrawn seat of Chisholm. We are in agreement that the margin in Deakin is a tiny 0.02%, but where he has it in favour of the Liberals, I make the seat to be notionally Labor.

Where we substantially differ is in seats where an independent is part of the equation. Calculations here are necessarily speculative, as independents will not have been on the ballot paper in newly added areas (where transfers have been conducted between teal seats, this can be dealt with by treating them as a collective). Antony has a method involving comparison of House and Senate vote shares which he says is “imperfect, but so are all alternatives”. The imperfection of my method, which gives independents no primary votes from newly added areas and allocates only the preference flows they might have expected from the other candidates, is that it’s very harsh on the independents, a fact most apparent with respect to Kooyong, where my 0.1% margin for Monique Ryan compares with Antony’s 2.2%.

Complete accountings of my redistribution calculations can be observed through the following links, for New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Northern Territory.

Polling and electoral developments of note:

• This week’s Roy Morgan poll had the Coalition leading 52-48, out from 51-49 a week before, from primary votes of Labor 28% (down two, their worst result of the term), Coalition 38% (down half), Greens 13% (up half) and One Nation 6.5% (steady). The previous election two-party measure was a dead heat, unchanged on last week.

• The Australian reported last Saturday that a EMRS poll covering all five seats in Tasmania pointed to a status quo result of two Labor, two Liberal and one independent. In Labor’s precarious seat of Lyons, a generic party-based question has Labor on 34%, Liberal on 31%, the Greens on 11% and Jacqui Lambie Network 4%, while a separate question specifying candidates had 40% for Labor’s Rebecca White, 31% for Liberal candidate Susie Bowers and 9% for the Greens. The Liberals were well ahead in Braddon, leading 44% to 27% on the primary vote with the Greens on 9% and JLN on 7%. In Franklin the results were Labor 36%, Liberal 35% and Greens 11%, suggesting Labor would survive a substantial swing.

• Liberal MP Paul Fletcher announced this week that he will not recontest his seat of Bradfield. Fletcher retained the seat by 4.2% in 2022 in the face of a challenge from teal independent Nicolette Boele, who will run again at the coming election. His announcement comes shortly after teal independent MP Kylea Tink said she would not contest the seat following the abolition of her existing seat of North Sydney, much of whose territory will be transferred to Bradfield. The Sydney Morning Herald reports on two contenders to succeed Fletcher as Liberal candidate: Gisele Kapterian, an international trade lawyer and former staffer to Julie Bishop who shares Fletcher’s moderate factional alignment, and Penny George, director of corporate affairs at AstraZeneca and wife of state upper house member Scott Farlow. Kapterian was endorsed last year as the candidate for North Sydney, but had the rug pulled from under her with the seat’s abolition.

• Liberal MP Ian Goodenough, who lost preselection in his northern Perth suburbs seat of Moore to former Stirling MP Vince Connelly, has surprised nobody by announcing he will seek re-election as an independent. Connelly was the member for Stirling, part of which is now the southern end of Moore, from 2019 until its abolition in 2022. Goodenough claims to have been told that “opportunities might arise that would be of benefit” if he didn’t run.

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports former Senator Joanna Lindgren is “poised” to be preselected as the LNP’s candidate for the Ipswich region seat of Blair, held for Labor by Shayne Neumann on a margin of 5.2%. Lindgren served in the Senate for a year after filling a casual vacancy but failed to win re-election at the 2016 double dissolution. Trevor Evans, who lost Brisbane to the Greens in 2022, is expected to again be chosen as the party’s candidate for the seat at a preselection to be held today, though he faces an opponent in Fiona Ward, a past federal and state candidate and regular preselection aspirant. Two contenders are named for the party’s preselection for Lilley, held for Labor by Annika Wells on a 10.5% margin: Kimberley Washington, a former staffer to LNP-turned-independent Senator Gerard Rennick, and Dylan Conway, an army veteran and founder of a mental health charity.

• Sarah Elks of The Australian reports Clive Palmer has launched a High Court bid to overrule a section of the Electoral Act that disallowed him from re-registering his United Australia Party for the next election after his voluntary deregistration of it in September 2022. The report quotes electoral law expert Graeme Orr saying the section exists to prevent newly deregistered parties having their names poached and did not reckon seeking to de-register and re-register, the “obvious reason” for which was to avoid having to make financial disclosures.

• The Victorian state by-election for Prahran will be held on February 8, with the ballot paper draw to be held on January 17. Tony Lupton, who held the seat for Labor from 2002 to 2010, has announced he will run as an independent, calling his former party’s decision to forfeit the contest “cowardly”. The Liberals will choose their candidate in a preselection ballot today.

• South Australia’s state redistribution has been finalised. Ben Raue at The Tally Room has taken a much closer look than I have, and concludes that the already minimal changes from the proposal have become even more conservative in the final determination. One change is that the seat of Frome will become Ngadjuri, owing to concerns raised that the seat’s namesake had been involved in a retribution attack on an Aboriginal encampment.

• Poll Bludger regular Adrian Beaumont offers an overview of results for last month’s US presidential and congressional elections with a more optimistic take for Democrats than most commentators, especially their prospects at the November 2026 midterm elections.

Newspoll: 50-50 (open thread)

Labor moves back to parity on two-party preferred in Newspoll, but Resolve Strategic finds their position continuing to deteriorate.

The Australian reports the first Newspoll in four weeks has an even result on two-party preferred, where the Coalition led 51-49 last time. Primary votes are little changed, with Labor steady on 33%, the Coalition down a point to 39%, the Greens steady on 11% and One Nation up two to 7%. Anthony Albanese is steady at 40% approval and down a point on disapproval to 54%, while Peter Dutton is down a point to 39% and steady on 51%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister has widened from 45-41 to 45-38.

Also featured is a suite of questions on leader attributes that Newspoll has been running on a semi-regular basis since 2010. Dutton scores small leads on experienced, has a vision for Australia and understands the major issues, and a large lead on decisive and strong, for which Albanese’s 44% is significantly worse than for any of the previous prime ministers covered. Albanese’s two good marks are a 57% to 45% lead over Dutton on cares for people, and a 58% to 47% deficit on arrogant. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1258.

UPDATE: I had missed that Nine Newspapers also have the monthly Resolve Strategic poll, which gives Labor its worst result of the term, their primary vote down three to 27%. The Coalition is also down, by one point to 38%, with the Greens up one to 12% and One Nation up two to 7%. Personal ratings for both leaders have significantly weakened: Anthony Albanese is down six on approval to 31% and up six on disapproval to 57%, while Peter Dutton is down five to 40% and up two to 42%. The poll continues to record a tie on preferred prime minister, shifting from 37-37 to 35-35. Other findings include 59% saying they are worse off since the 2022 election, with only 13% better off; 36% saying Dutton and the Coalition would improve things more over the next three years, compared with 27%; and 44% expecting the Coalition will win the next election, compared with 33% for Labor. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1604.

South Korean and French government crises

South Korea’s conservative president not impeached after declaring martial law, while France’s PM loses no-confidence motion. Also: Romania’s presidential election annulled

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.

On Tuesday night, South Korean conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, a move that got international media coverage.  Hours later, Yoon was forced to withdraw this declaration.

A two-thirds majority of parliament’s 300 seats was needed to impeach Yoon.  The opposition centre-left Democrats and allies hold a 192-108 majority, so they needed eight MPs from Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) to support impeachment.  But PPP MPs boycotted Saturday’s vote, and it was declared invalid with only 195 MPs voting, short of the 200 needed to impeach.  Impeachment required 200 votes, with abstentions effectively No votes.

If Yoon had been impeached, he would have been suspended and replaced by the PM, Han Duck-soo, a Yoon appointee.  If six of the nine judges of South Korea’s highest court agreed with the impeachment or Yoon resigned, new presidential elections would be required within 60 days.

Yoon won the March 2022 presidential election by a 48.6-47.8 margin over the Democratic candidate, and his five-year term ends in 2027.  Even before the current crisis, Yoon was very unpopular with over 70% disapproving of his performance.  At April 2024 parliamentary elections, the PPP was thumped.  A poll had 73.6% of South Koreans favouring impeachment.

French PM ousted after losing no-confidence vote

French President Emmanuel Macron called parliamentary elections for early July, three years before they were due.  The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) won 180 of the 677 seats, Macron’s centrist Ensemble 159, the far-right National Rally (RN) and allies 142 and the conservative Republicans 39.  After the 2022 elections, Ensemble was easily the largest party with 245 seats, though well short of the 289 needed for a majority.

In September Macron appointed the conservative Michel Barnier PM.  With the NFP hostile to him, Barnier depended on RN not supporting a no-confidence motion.  Barnier used a French parliamentary procedure to force through an unpopular budget measure without a vote last Monday, so the only way to block this measure was by a no-confidence motion.  The RN supported the NFP’s no-confidence motion.  On Wednesday Barnier’s government was defeated by 331 votes to 244 after only three months.  It was the first successful no-confidence motion since 1962.

Macron cannot call new parliamentary elections until July 2025.  A centrist or conservative PM would be likely to suffer Barnier’s fate.  Whoever Macron appoints as his new PM will need to be someone who can keep the support of either the NFP or RN.  Either of these blocs combined with Ensemble would be enough for a governing majority.

Romanian court annuls presidential election

On November 24, a far-right and pro-Russia independent topped the first round of the Romanian presidential election with 22.9%, followed by a pro-EU candidate on 19.18%, a centre-left candidate on 19.15% and another right-wing candidate on 13.9%.  The runoff was to be held today, but on Friday a Romanian court annulled the election owing to Russian influence, so the first round will need to be rerun.

Romanian parliamentary elections occurred on December 1.  The 331 lower house MPs and 136 senators were elected by proportional representation in 43 multi-member electorates based on Romania’s counties with a 5% national threshold.  After the fall of the previous government in September 2021, the centre-left PSD and conservative PNL had formed a grand coalition.  At this election, the PSD and PNL lost their combined majority, with big gains for three right-wing to far-right parties.  The PSD and PNL will need the cnetre to centre-right USR to form a majority.

Irish election results wrap

At the November 29 Irish election, there were 174 seats in 43 multi-member electorates that used the Hare-Clark system with three to five members per electorate.  There were 14 more total seats than at the March 2020 election.

The conservative Fianna Fáil won 48 seats (up ten from 2020), the left-wing Sinn Féin 39 (up two), the conservative Fine Gael 38 (up three), the Social Democrats 11 (up five), Labour 11 (up five), the right-wing Independent Ireland four (new) and independents 16 (down three).  The Greens were reduced to just one seat (down 11) after being part of the previous FF/FG government.  FF and FG combined have 86 seats, only two short of a majority.
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