Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Hiatus / Queensland outlook

Just a brief note to warn readers that I could well be largely or entirely offline between now and February 6th, by reason of remote fieldwork - a commitment locked in long before it was apparent that the normally sleepy last week in January might actually be politically interesting.

I'm trying to arrange a degree of online access over the next week and a half, at least in order to provide running commentary on Queensland election night, but I do not yet know if these attempts will be successful, and given the remoteness of my fieldwork, they may not.  So if I don't pop up on election night I suggest keep an eye on Poll Bludger, and if watching the ABC coverage remember that the ABC computer is prone to calling individual seats prematurely.

I was hoping to do some detailed analysis of some fresh Queensland polling but there hasn't been anything of real note for a week.  After the last two significant polls by ReachTEL (52:48 to LNP, though off primaries that I translated to about 52.6% to LNP) and Morgan (50.5% to LNP), my aggregate had the LNP leading with 52.1% of the two-party vote, which came out on my model to a projection of 49 LNP, 36 Labor, and 4 other seats.  The Newspoll reported as showing a larger 13.6% swing to Labor was only an amalgam of three disparate seats that Labor was always expected to recover rather easily, and told us very little despite the headlines.

However, given the very strange, and massively inconsistent, campaign by the LNP over the last week, followed by PM Abbott reminding Queensland voters of his existence in a way that was impossible to ignore, I'm treating the now week-old data as much less reliable than normal. I'm  waiting with interest to see if this week brings any polling to show that the contest has sprung back into life. I'd go so far as to say it's a poor reflection on my state of birth if it hasn't, but the impact of campaign events and missteps on election outcomes, as declared by the commentariat, is often easy to overestimate.  That's all I have time for for now, alas, so hopefully I'll be able to get online during the week.  If not, I'll be back in force from the weekend of February 7th.

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