Polls: Essential Research and Roy Morgan (open thread)

Essential Research continues to point to a close race, while Labor maintains a lead in Roy Morgan without matching last week’s result.

The fortnightly Essential Research poll finds Labor recovering the lead on its 2PP+ measure after losing it for the first time in the previous poll, albeit just barely. The primary votes, which include a 5% undecided component (up one), have Labor up two to 32%, the Coalition steady on 35%, the Greens down two to 11% and One Nation up one to 8%, while Labor’s 48-47 lead on 2PP+ (likewise with 5% undecided) reverses the result from last time.

Further questions focus on foreign policy, with a three-choice question on “Australia’s role in global affairs” finding 20% opting for “primarily an ally of the US”, 38% for “an independent middle power with influence in the Asia-Pacific region” and 25% for “Australia should do its best not to engage in world affairs”. On Israel’s military action in Gaza, 18% felt Israel justified in its present course with a further 20% saying it should agree to a temporary ceasefire, while 37% felt it should permanently withdraw. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1216.

After a Labor blowout in the last poll, the weekly Roy Morgan has its two-party lead in from 53.5-46.5 to 51.5-48.5, from primary votes of Labor 32% (down two), Coalition 38% (up one-and-a-half), Greens 13% (down half) and One Nation 4% (up half). The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1714.

The date of the by-election for Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook has been set at April 13, with nominations to be declared on March 22. Labor is yet to formally determine if it will field a candidate, but has offered public indications that it is unlikely to.

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

Improvement for Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings but little change in voting behaviour from what remains the least favourable federal poll series for Labor.

The monthly Freshwater Strategy poll for the Financial Review finds Labor with an unchanged two-party lead of 51-49, from primary votes of Labor 31% (steady), Coalition 39% (up one) and Greens 14% (steady). Anthony Albanese’s lead over Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister is out from 42-38 to 47-38, though his personal ratings of 37% favourable and 45% unfavourable show no change in net terms on a month ago (when it doesn’t appear the actual numbers were reported). Peter Dutton is respectively down two to 30% and up two to 43%.

Also featured were questions on the leaders’ attributes, with results including leads for Albanese of 28-24 on trustworthiness (a notably high response rather for neither) and 39-28 for being in touch with ordinary people, and for Dutton of 44-38 on clarity of vision and 38-32 on being good in a crisis. Labor also narrows deficits since last month’s poll as best party to handle the cost of living and tax and government spending. The poll was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1051.

YouGov: 52-48 to Labor (open thread)

Labor follows its Dunkley by-election win with better ratings for Anthony Albanese in one poll and a sharp improvement on voting intention in another.

The three-weekly federal poll from YouGov records little change on voting intention, with Labor steady at 32%, the Coalition up a point to 37%, the Greens up a point to 15% and One Nation down two to 6%, and Labor’s two-party lead steady at 52-48. However, Anthony Albanese personal ratings are improved, up four on approval to 44% and down three on disapproval to 50%, and his lead as preferred prime minister out from 45-38 to 48-34. Peter Dutton is at 39% approval and 49% disapproval, down two points on last time in net terms. The poll also records an 86-14 split in favour of the principle behind the recently passed “right to disconnect” laws. It was conducted February 24 to March 5 from a sample of 1539.

The rather more volatile weekly poll from Roy Morgan recorded a spike this week in favour of Labor, who lead 53.5-46.5 on two-party preferred after a dead heat last week, from primary votes of Labor 34% (up two-and-a-half), Coalition 36.5% (down one-and-a-half), Greens 13.5% (up one-and-a-half) and One Nation 3.5% (down one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1679.

The other big item of federal electoral news for the week was Monday’s Liberal preselection for Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook, where a by-election will be held on a date to be determined. The winner was Simon Kennedy, former McKinsey consultant and unsuccessful candidate for Bennelong in 2022, who won in the first round with 158 votes to Carmelo Pesce’s 90, Gwen Cherne’s 35 and Benjamin Britton’s 13.

US Super Tuesday primaries live

Trump set to grab a huge majority of the 865 Republican delegates on offer today. Also: the right is likely to win the Portuguese election this Sunday.

11:31am Friday With 98% of Super Tuesday delegates allocated in the NYT count, Trump leads Haley by 1,062 delegates to 91. The only consolation for Haley is that her vote share has risen to 50.2% in Vermont. If that holds, she will win all 17 Vermont delegates, not just the 9 from a proportional split.

7:34am Thursday summary Haley has withdrawn. It’s been obvious for a long time, but Trump will be the Republican nominee. Dean Phillips also withdrew from the Democratic contest, so it’s virtually official: a Trump vs Biden rematch.

Trump won the Utah caucus by 57-42 last night. This was easily his worst state in 2016, but the Mormons in Utah clearly like him better now. The NYT delegate count gives Trump 1,004 delegates to 89 for Haley, with 1,215 needed to win. Trump will reach that target by March 19. Other than Vermont (Haley by four), Trump’s margins ranged from 15 points in Utah to 76 in Alaska. He now leads the Republican national popular vote count on The Green Papers by 71.7-24.7 (this includes all states that have held primaries or caucuses so far).

This will be my final live blog on the US primaries, and probably my last post here for a while.

Live Commentary

6:28pm Trump has crushed Haley in Alaska by 87.6-12.0. Alaska had proportional rep for delegates, but a 13% threshold was needed. With Haley below 13%, Trump will take all 29 delegates.

4:49pm I don’t know why Utah, where polls closed at 2pm AEDT, still has under 1% counted. The Green Papers now has Trump up to 936 delegates, with Haley on 83.

4:05pm On the Green Papers’ delegate tracker, Trump now leads with 829 to 68 for Haley. and he’s well on track for the 1,215 needed to win. Today’s primaries have also enhanced his popular vote position; he now leads Haley by 71-25 on overall popular votes in the primaries so far.

3:20pm Trump has been CALLED the winner in California, and will take all 169 delegates from that state. In the Senate “jungle primary”, where all candidates from different parties compete on the same ballot and the top two go through to the general election regardless of party, Dem Schiff and Rep Garvey are very likely to qualify.

2:43pm Vermont has been CALLED for Haley, and she currently leads Trump by 49.7-46.0 with 92% in. Can she get over the 50%+ needed to win all 17 delegates?

2:16pm With 90% counted in Vermont, Haley leads Trump by 49.5-46.2, and should win. But due to votes for dropped out candidates, she may not get the 50%+ required to win all of Vermont’s 17 delegates. If she doesn’t, they’ll be proportionally allocated.

1:58pm And now Trump is up to 645 pledged delegates in Green Papers’ count.

1:41pm Green Papers now has Trump up to 558 “soft pledged” delegates, while Haley is still on 43.

1:35pm Minnesota and Colorado, where polls closed at 1pm AEDT, have both been called for Trump, and he’ll easily win both. Haley is still ahead on the NYT projection for Vermont by 2.7% with 52% in.

1:30pm Biden is also romping to huge victories in the Dem primaries.

1:21pm The NYT has been slow to call delegates. The Green Papers has Trump up to 325 delegates, while Haley is still on 43. I have made great use of this site in these articles as they give all the delegate rules.

1:04pm With all polls now closed in Texas, that’s been CALLED for Trump, with the NYT needle pointing to a final result of Trump by 53. Trump will win all 47 Texan statewide delegates and probably at least 90 district delegates (three delegates per district won).

12:26pm The NYT needle is at Haley by 2.3 in Vermont with 28% in. Everything else looks like a Trump blowout.

12:11pm North Carolina has been CALLED for Trump as he leads by 51 points with 9% in. NC is a closed primary available to only registered Reps. The NYT needle has Trump by 52 there. Tennessee has also been called for Trump.

11:54am Trump back ahead in Vermont in both the live count and the NYT projection with 11% in. This is a heavily Dem state at general elections that had an “open” primary, as there’s no registration by party in Vermont.

11:41am Haley is now ahead in Vermont with 7% in, and the NYT needle gives her a 1.6-point forecast lead.

11:35am Hete’s the main NYT page to follow all the results as they come in. There are also congressional primary races in many states voting today. In Vermont, the needle only has Trump winning by 1.6 points.

11:30am With 10% counted in Virginia, it’s been CALLED for Trump, as he leads Haley by 64-34. The NYT needle is at Trump by 31.

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.

Polls close between 11am and 4pm AEDT today for Republican presidential contests in 15 states that will allocate a total of 865 delegates. These include the two most populous states of California and Texas. The large majority of polls in Texas close at 12pm AEDT, but the area around El Paso closes an hour later. Polls close in California at 3pm AEDT.

All of California’s 169 delegates go to the winner if a vote majority is reached (which is almost certain as there are only two candidates remaining). In Texas, the 47 statewide delegates go to the state’s winner, and the 114 district delegates (three for each of Texas’ 38 Congressional Districts) go to the district’s winner. Many other states voting today also have a majority vote wins all delegates rule by statewide or district.

Donald Trump leads Nikki Haley by massive margins in Californian and Texan polls. In the FiveThirtyEight aggregates, he leads by 73.4-18.6 in California, and by 78.4-14.4 in Texas. California has a “closed” primary where only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. In national polls, Trump leads by 77,3-15.2, while Joe Biden leads Dean Phillips in national Democratic primary polls by 75.9-8.2.

In contests held over the last few days, Trump won all 54 delegates available in Missouri, all 39 at the Michigan state convention (these were awarded separately to the 16 that were on offer at the February 27 Michigan primary), all 32 in Idaho, and all 29 in North Dakota. But Haley won all 19 delegates in Washington DC, which gives Democrats over 85% at general elections. Trump now leads Haley on the Republican delegate count by 273-43, with 1,215 needed to win the nomination.

No popular votes were recorded in Missouri, but Trump won all 924 delegates to the state convention at Saturday’s caucuses. In Michigan, Trump won by 98-2 at the state convention after winning the primary 68-27. In Idaho, he won by 85-13, and in North Dakota by 85-14, while Haley won DC by 63-33. These were majority winner takes all contests, except in ND where 60% was required for WTA.

Most national general election polls give Trump a lead over Biden, by roughly a low single-digit margin, and Trump is likely further advantaged by the Electoral College system. In FiveThirtyEight averages, Trump’s net favourability is -8.8, while Biden’s net approval is -18.0. Trump’s ratings have improved recently, while Biden’s haven’t changed much. In a legal victory for Trump, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously overturned a Colorado court’s decision, so Trump will be on the ballot paper in all states in November.

Right likely to take control of Portugal at Sunday’s election

In January 2022 elections, the centre-left Socialists won an outright majority in Portugal’s legislature. But they had a series of major scandals that led to the resignation of the PM. In November 2023, the Portuguese president sacked the government and called elections for this Sunday, about two years early. The president, who is popularly elected for a five-year term, has more power in Portugal than in most other parliamentary democracies.

The 230 MPs are elected by proportional representation in multi-member electorates. This system gives bigger parties more seats than national PR. Most polls show the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD) leading the Socialists with about 17% for the far-right Chega. An alliance between AD and Chega will easily have enough seats for a majority, with the only question whether they will form such an alliance after the election. The Socialists have held government since shortly after the October 2015 election.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 34, Coalition 38, Greens 12 in NSW

The first New South Wales poll for the year records a surprise surge in support for the Coalition.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday published a New South Wales state poll from Resolve Strategic, which even more than last week’s federal result was a lot less strong for Labor than the pollster’s past form. A Coalition that has been struggling through its first year in opposition is credited with a six-point spike on the primary vote since November to 38%, while Labor is down three to 34%. The Greens are down a point to 12%, a generic independents category is steady on 12%, and “others” is down two to 5%. This suggests a two-party result of around 51.5-48.5 in Labor’s favour, compared with 54.3-45.7 at the election last March.

A preferred premier question continues to produce a high undecided result, although it has narrowed to the extent Chris Minns’ lead over Liberal leader Mark Speakman is out from 35-13 to 35-16. The accompanying report says the sample for the poll was 1035, but is silent on the question of field work dates. It thus leaves unanswered the question of whether the interruption of New Year has prompted a change to the pollster’s normal practice of combining state results from the past two monthly national surveys, last week’s poll having been the first since early December.

Tasmanian election minus three weeks

The closure of nominations reveals a bigger field of candidates chasing a bigger number of seats, including a proliferation of independents.

The closure of nominations last Thursday revealed 167 candidates, up from 105 in 2021, likely reflecting the increased number of seats up for grabs. With that milestone (not to mention the Dunkley by-election) accounted for, I will now set to work on bringing my state election guide up to speed. The candidates are evenly spread across the five divisions, with 36 running in Lyons, 35 in Clark, 33 in Braddon, 32 in Bass and 31 in Franklin. There are two notable late-declaring independents in Lyons: Central Highlands mayor Loueen Triffitt, whose daughter Angela Triffitt is running in Clark, and Jenny Branch-Allen, a former Glenorchy alderman who polled a third of the vote as an independent in the Legislative Council seat of Derwent in 2009. Kingborough deputy mayor Clare Glade-Wright is among the independents in Franklin.

The Mercury reported on Thursday that a private poll with results broken out for each division suggested 14 seats for the Liberals, 11 for Labor, four for the Greens, two for the Jacqui Lambie Network and four independents. However, the only detail provided was that it was a phone poll with a sample of 4000 – nothing on the pollster, the client or the field work dates. For what it’s worth, results were given for Bass of Liberal 37%, Labor 28%, JLN 15% and Greens 13%; for Braddon of Liberal 45%, Labor 26%, JLN 15% and Greens 5%; for Clark of Liberal 26%, independents 25%, Labor 24% and Greens 16%; for Franklin of Liberal 33%, Labor 24%, Greens 20%, JLN 8% and independents 8%; and for Lyons of Labor 35%, Liberal 34%, Greens 12%, JLN 8% and independents 10%.

UPDATE (5/3/24): RedBridge Group has a poll conducted February 16 to 28 from a sample of 753 which has Liberal on 33%, Labor on 29%, Greens on 14%, the Jacqui Lambie Network on 10% and all others on 14%, which it uses to estimate a result of 12 seats for the Liberals, 11 for Labor, six for the Greens, three for JLN and three for others. The linked report features extensive breakdowns by region, gender, age, education and so on.

Post-Dunkley miscellany (open thread)

The Liberals prepare to choose a successor for Scott Morrison in Cook this evening, an event likely to be of greater interest than the by-election itself.

The Dunkley by-election is now out of the way – if the progress of late counting interests you, the Poll Bludger’s live results page and live commentary post will continue ticking over. Another federal by-election now looms on the horizon for a date to be confirmed, though in the probable absence of a Labor candidate it is unlikely to generate as many column inches:

• The Liberals will choose their candidate for the by-election to replace Scott Morrison in Cook this evening, with a close race expected between Carmelo Pesce, Simon Kennedy and Gwen Cherne, the latter being boosted by an endorsement from John Howard (a fourth contender, Benjamin Britton, appears less fancied). Pesce is the subject of an unhelpfully timed report in the Sydney Morning Herald today relating that he participated in a Sutherland Shire council vote on an apartment development after earlier declaring a conflict of interest with the developer.

• Canning mayor Patrick Hall has withdrawn from the Liberal Party’s preselection for the Perth seat of Tangney, saying a controversy in which he is involved would “reflect poorly on the party and the seat of Tangney”, notwithstanding that he is the innocent party to the alleged incident. This came after Jesse Jacobs, a former council colleague of Hall’s, entered the preselection race despite facing charges of stealing Hall’s election campaign signs, following an incident in which Hall personally performed a citizen’s arrest on Jacobs and his co-accused. Other nominees are Mark Wales, SAS veteran and Survivor contestant; Sean Ayres, a former staffer to defeated former member Ben Morton; Howard Ong, a Singapore-born IT consultant; Melville councillor Jennifer Spanbroek; and Bill Koul, owner of an engineering consultancy.

• Victorian Labor Senator Linda White, whose six-year term began after her election in May 2022, died on Friday at the age of 64. White was a former assistant national secretary of the Australian Services Union, and succeeded veteran Kim Carr in the Left-mandated second position on the party’s Victorian ticket.

Dunkley by-election live

Live coverage of the count for the Dunkley by-election.

Click here for full display of Dunkley by-election results.

Monday night

Labor had slightly the better of a second batch of postals, breaking 2945-2908 in their favour on two-candidate preferred, after those counted on election night went 4118-3721 to the Liberals.

Sunday night

Today’s counting consisted of rechecking and the addition of 338 formal votes from special hospital teams and electronic assisted voting. Of note in the former case was the correction in the Langwarrin booth that had inflated the Liberal swing there from 5.0% to 11.1% on two-party and from 7.6% to 13.7% on the primary vote. The latter figure was cited by News Corp’s James Campbell as evidence the Liberals had done better in the “richer, Tealier part of the electorate”. A similar argument by in a jointly written column for the Financial Review by Tim Wilson and Jason Falinksi, who lost their seats to teals in 2022, hangs on the slender thread of the Mount Eliza North booth — the one that gave the Liberals false hope when it was the first to report on Saturday, and which turns out to have had the biggest Liberal swing. Left unmentioned is that the other three election day booths in Mount Eliza, which each had two to three times more votes cast at them than Mount Eliza North, recorded below par swings of 1.0% to 1.6% (each of the electorate’s three pre-poll centres, including the one in Mount Eliza, swung by 4% to 5%). In point of fact, a geographical pattern to the results is difficult to discern.

End of Saturday night

The 3.9% two-party swing currently recorded against Labor in Dunkley can only be described as unremarkable. It is worse than the 1.3% average for first-term governments out of the twelve previous contested by-elections going back to 1983, but that includes some notable successes for governments in the first-flush of their honeymoons, including the 6.4% swing to Labor in Aston last year. All but two of the twelve were conducted in the government’s first year in office: in the two that weren’t, there were anti-government swings of 2.7% (last year’s Fadden by-election) and 6.1% (the Canning by-election in 2015, held days after Tony Abbott was deposed by Malcolm Turnbull). Another minor contingency is that Labor did badly out of the ballot paper draw, with the Liberal in first position and Labor last, whereas Peta Murphy was second behind an independent in 2022.

Evidence that by-elections caused by deaths are easier on the incumbent party than those caused by resignations seems to me rather thin. The average 4.8% swing in seats at by-elections caused by the deaths of government members calculated by The Australian is, by my reckoning, actually slightly higher than an overall 4.2% average in government-held seats over the same period. A linear regression analysis I conducted testing for death, disqualification, first-year and first-term effects going back to 1972 turned up no statistically significant evidence for any of them.

The Liberals’ 6.7% gain on the primary vote likely reflected reduced options for right-of-centre voters, with 7.9% up for grabs from the absent United Australia Party and One Nation. The other right contenders, independent Darren Bergwerf and the Libertarian Party (then the Liberal Democrats), were also in the field last time, and respectively made up a little ground and no ground. Conversely, the entry of Victorian Socialists meant there was more competition for the left-of-centre vote, although their 1.7% only partly accounted for a 3.8% drop in support for the Greens. Animal Justice gained 1.0%, and it seems likely Labor was able to hold level on the primary vote through net gains from the Greens that balanced out net losses to the Liberals.

Talk of a danger to Labor from apathy-driven low turnout does not seem to have been borne out. The votes of 74.2% of the enrolled voters have been counted, already in excess of the 72.5% at the Fadden by-election of last year, and likely to reach 81% after around 12,000 outstanding postals are processed. However, this will still leave it short of the 85.6% in Aston.

Election night commentary

Continue reading “Dunkley by-election live”