The Queensland Poll Drought Is Finally Over

Note added 16 Oct: The Newspoll just out is virtually identical to the YouGov poll below so I have nothing to add to this article on its behalf, save that it is not just one poll saying this now, but two by the same company, and with much less time remaining.  It should be noted though that the Greens primary is down 1% on the YouGov poll, which makes the 52-48 2PP off those primaries rather than 51-49 seem more tenuous, especially with the information that the UAP is polling something in the Others tray.  

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YouGov 2PP 52-48 to Labor

Projected seat result if this poll is accurate: ALP win, but majority status touch and go (approx ALP 48-9 LNP 37 KAP 3 Green 2-3 ON 1 Ind 1 - almost no net change from 2017)

Over three months since the last, and less than four weeks til polls close, we finally have another public voting intention poll for the 2020 Queensland election.  Finally, for a week at least, I will be able to scan social media in search of polling data in some peace without the Violent Femmes singing "WHY CAN'T I GET JUST ONE POLL?" or the Angels responding "AM I EVER GONNA SEE A POLL AGAIN?" in my head.  The release of a rather large statewide YouGov sample that has Labor leading 52-48 finally gives me something to apply a statewide poll model to so I can talk about modelling and this election.  Though in comparison to 2017, there's really nowhere near as much to say.  

And, well, it's still just one poll, and with four weeks to go, so even if it's accurate now, things can still change.  YouGov's previous combined robopoll/online method (abandoned late last year) had an average final poll 2PP error of 1.8 points (still good by world standards).  The new one may well be better, but this will be its first serious test.  I do not assert that the polling is necessarily perfect or predict on its account that Labor will win, but I am here to say what sort of seat result it should convert to if correct.

The basics

Although the Courier-Mail touts this as "One of the largest weighted opinion polls ever in Queensland", the word "public" should have found its way in there somewhere, as there have been several larger union robopolls.  Nonetheless, a sample size of around 2000, using YouGov's new methods that are designed to cut down on the need to scale up hard-to-reach demographics, is not small fry.  

The poll has Labor leading statewide 52-48 off primaries of 37 each for the major parties, 12% for the Greens, 9% to One Nation, 2% to KAP and just 3% for Others (I always doubt Others will be quite that low!)  The suggestion is that primary votes are leaving One Nation and going to the major parties but that there may be also some small movement from the LNP to Labor.  This becomes clearer in the regional breakdowns.

The regional breakdowns have Labor leading 57-43 (-1 compared to 2017) in Greater Brisbane, the LNP leading 53-47 in regional Queensland (+1) but the LNP's lead in the Gold and Sunshine Coasts shrinking by three points to 54-46.  In the latter, the primary vote motion appears at first glance to be from One Nation (down 5) to Labor (up 6) and several people have queried this.  However this would actually represent One Nation losing votes to both the LNP and Labor, but the LNP (up three) would also lose some of its gains to Labor, thereby swelling Labor's gain compared to 2017.  

The 2PP estimate assumes preferences will flow in roughly the same way as they did in 2017.  There's some potential for this not to be the case - for instance Katters Australian Party voters might swing to preferencing the LNP, or the United Australia Party might bob up for a percent or so statewide which might flow that way.  However it's also possible that Greens preferences, which have a history of flowing somewhat weakly in Queensland state elections, might flow more strongly to Labor.  

The poll shows Annastacia Palaszczuk with a +30 net rating, to Deb Frecklington's -3, and Palaszczuk leads 48-22 on the skewed Better Premier metric, which favours incumbents.  As noted in my coverage of the recent leadership Newspoll, leaders this popular, historically, do not lose.  However, COVID-19 is a potential exception because huge personal ratings do not reliably translate into huge voting intention leads during it, and the latter are what drives election victories.  So we should not see Palaszczuk's personal ratings as a signal strong enough to disregard the closeness of this poll.  

Seat modelling

My usual approach to converting a notional statewide 2PP (from a poll, a poll aggregate, or anywhere else) to an expected average seat tally is a conditional probability model.  It applies basic corrections to seats for house effects based on the retirement of sitting members or the gaining of new personal votes, and then assumes that all seat swings vary within a standard deviation (usually of 3%).  This is a basic version of the more deluxe models used from time to time at Poll Bludger, and usually produces very similar results.  It avoids some weaknesses of the uniform swing/pendulum model, which can overestimate seat losses by a government that gained seats at the previous election, and can make errors if a large number of seats held by one party have margins just on one side or the other of the expected swing.  A basic finding of my model here is that if the election is relatively close, Labor should have a slight advantage in converting 2PP votes into seats, as a result of seats that they won from the LNP at the previous election and recent LNP retirements.  However, this is only worth about half a seat.  

For this model's purpose I exclude all seats won by crossbenchers (as such at the time) in 2017 (all of which I expect them to retain, though with considerable doubt about Mirani).  And I am only interested in the 2PP ALP vs LNP margin, or my best approximation of it.  

This is a much simpler model than the 2017 models I used to try to get a handle on the One Nation vote, which was a very difficult task.  If the One Nation vote falls as much as suggested, then any One Nation seat wins, or seats where they trigger an exclusion order issue that determines the outcome, become unlikely and very difficult to predict using a model.  The high success rate of crossbench MPs in holding their seats generally might mean they hold up better in Mirani than elsewhere, but so few One Nation MPs have ever survived a full term within the party that we have very little to go on for them.  Note also that this model does not seek to project the chances (if any) of independent challengers - one seat of particular interest is Oodgeroo, but there is no data basis for projecting it.  As concerns Katters Australian Party, I am simply assuming that they hold their existing seats, but Poll Bludger poster Bird of paradox raises the possibility that in the fascinating seat of Thuringowa, if One Nation's vote collapses, the Katter candidate (Julianne Wood, apparently a high profile anti-crime crusader) could win that seat.  

This is what the close end of the model looks like assuming a 2PP of 52-48 and a uniformly distributed swing around the state.  Raw is the seat's raw 2PP margin, Model is its model margin under these assumptions, and Prob is the probability of it being retained given the assumptions that the model makes.

The model projects Labor losing about two of its own seats (1.8 on average) and the LNP losing about four of its (4.2), though it doesn't tag any seat as particularly likely to go, and some of the individual seat odds (especially around Cairns and Townsville) are overconfident because of the dubious assumption that the swing varies only randomly from place to place. Overall it projects Labor to win the 2PP in 50-51 of the 87 seats in the model, based on this poll.  However, assuming the LNP stick to their pledge to preference Labor last everywhere, and assuming what the poll says about the Green vote in Brisbane is true, the Greens should win South Brisbane and may win McConnel, so Labor might end up with about what it has now (48-49, though variation in individual seats could put it a few better or worse than that).

Now here's a version that takes into account the regional swings predicted in the poll's local sampling.  This version assumes a 3% swing to Labor in the Gold and Sunshine Coast seats and a 1% swing to LNP everywhere else.  While this picture is not surprising given general speculation about likely areas of swing, it sometimes happens that everyone expects a swing to break in a certain way, the polls say it will do so, and then it doesn't.  

In this case Labor on average loses the 2PP in 3.5 Labor seats, and the LNP in 5.1 LNP seats. Labor holds only one of the seats that are treated differently, and the LNP holds a stack of them that become probable Labor pickups or tossups.  But the projected swing pattern shores up the LNP's regional and Brisbane seats while making Labor weaker in almost all its seats (Mundingburra and Townsville probably fall and a few others become very shaky), so the pattern is actually slightly better for the LNP's seat tally overall than the basic version.  Labor comes out with 49-50 2PP wins, and is touch and go for majority government if the Greens take their two target seats in this version.

A note re McConnel: The 2PP model predicts that Labor will win the 2PP but doesn't project the contest with the Greens.  LNP preferences are unlikely to be relevant in this seat.  The swing in the Brisbane section of the YouGov poll on primary votes is not quite enough to put the Greens into second if it is uniform, as it would only cut an existing 5.9% 3PP margin to about 1.9%.  However surges in the Green vote (if they occur) are likely to concentrate in target seats.  

Whatever, while Labor could easily lose (or increase) their majority on this poll, it would take some very creative slicing and dicing to fashion it into an LNP victory.  Unless this poll is wrong, the LNP have work to do if they are to win office.  Indeed, a few more like this would damage their claim to be able to win majority government.  A perception that only one side was able to win majority government could be damaging at this time.

Something I do not consider at this stage is One Nation preference shifting.  If One Nation maintain a policy of preferencing against incumbents, except the ones they like, then there could be some seats such as Aspley and Redlands where the preference flow for Labor is more difficult than last time.  At this stage One Nation have not announced candidates for either, and it is unknown if they are running.

Betting

It will be interesting to watch whether betting markets scramble to repair their webs in the wake of this poll.  Until this poll, markets have been slightly favouring the LNP, and have echoed a general assumption that the LNP is ahead with around 51-52% of the 2PP vote.  It is unclear what basis for that assumption, if any, exists beyond public polls having shown this in June and July.  As of a few days ago one market had Labor gaining nothing and was projecting Labor to lose Apsley, Barron River, Mundingburra, Mansfield, Townsville and South Brisbane with ties in Redlands, Cairns, Keppel (with One Nation) and McConnel (with Greens).  Relatively little has changed as I write.  Another smaller market, however, disagrees about several of these seats.  

We may see other useable polls soon, so I will comment about what seat breakdowns they would translate to if accurate at the time; if any emerge in the next few days this article will be updated.  

Also see my preview for the Guardian. 

Update: Economic Question

While I have not seen the exact wording, a question on management of the economy and jobs found Palaszczuk (possibly plus her party) leading Frecklington (ditto) 40-27.  Economy is a natural Coalition strength area so if this is anywhere near accurate it's a bad sign for the LNP and they have very little time to improve perceptions in that area.  Some inauspicious Coalition comparisons - Campbell Newman led 52-36 on such a question and lost in 2015, while in Victoria Matthew Guy trailed only 42-43 before an election at which his party was thrashed senseless.  Possibly mention of jobs has diluted the conservative advantage on this question but however this was worded it's a wakeup alarm for the LNP.