2021 Tasmanian Postcount: Braddon

(Link to main 2021 page including link to other postcount threads)

BRADDON (2018 result 3 Liberal 2 Labor)

SEAT RESULT 3 Liberal 2 Labor 

CALLED ELECTED: Jeremy Rockliff (Lib), Anita Dow (ALP), Shane Broad (ALP)

WITHIN PARTY CONTEST (Liberal): Adam Brooks extremely likely to win, Roger Jaensch vs Felix Ellis for third Liberal seat.  Expecting formal confirmation soon that Brooks and Jaensch have won.   (UPDATE: confirmed)

In Braddon there is nearly 84% counted.  The Liberals have 3.42 quotas, Labor has 1.6, the Greens 0.32, the Shooters 0.23 and Craig Garland has 0.37 (6%) and has beaten the Greens again!  Jeremy Rockliff has topped the poll, of course, and currently has 1.74 quotas.  

It might look like this is a trivial two for Labor but candidate effects have come into play in Braddon before.  In theory, the Liberals might be able to spread their 2.42 quotas after Rockliff's surplus between three candidates with about 0.8 of a quota each and thereby compete with Labor's final two on about the same, and if a Labor candidate happened to be last after preferences Labor would lose.

However for the Liberals to keep their three candidates ahead of Labor's second in that case requires the Liberals to keep beating Labor three to two on preferences, which won't occur.  In fact, Labor will move ahead of the Liberals on preferences because of the Greens preferences, which I have heard from one scrutineering source are flowing reasonably strongly to Labor.  The preferences of Garland are also unlikely to favour the Liberals and those of the Shooters are likely to be a wash between the majors.

Labor also have the advantage that Shane Broad and Anita Dow again have a very even split of votes between them.  Early in the night former federal MHR Justine Keay threatened to beat Labor's incumbents but Keay is now 1461 behind Dow which I think is too much.  (There are only around 2500 minor Labor candidate preferences and there will also be Green, Garland and Shooters preferences but gaps of this size generally don't close.)

The interesting contest in Braddon is on the Liberal side.  Behind Rockliff, Felix Ellis has polled very well indeed and currently has 5774 votes to 5703 for Adam Brooks and 4540 for Roger Jaensch.  The question is whether Jeremy Rockliff's surplus (currently 6825) can pull Jaensch up enough to challenge Brooks and Ellis.  If this does happen, it will be also interesting to see whether Rockliff's surplus breaks strongly enough to either Ellis or Brooks to make them safe.  

Most likely the votes that decide this contest will be the Rockliff surplus, the votes for minor Liberal candidates and what votes reach the Liberal ticket from Greens, Garland and Shooters.  Labor votes will have little impact upon it.  

The government would be extremely nervous about having Brooks as part of a one-seat majority (assuming they get one) and if he is elected he might not last long before handing the seat back to either Jaensch or Ellis.  But Rockliff has also long been expected to retire, so if Brooks misses out that complicates matters because a Rockliff retirement would then return Brooks.  In various configurations, down the track either Lara Hendriks or Stacey Sheehan might be looking at a seat.  

Sunday: Brooks has overtaken Ellis.  Ignoring preferences from other candidates, Jaensch currently needs to beat Ellis on Rockliff's surplus by 18%, or Brooks by 19%, to get out of third in the Liberal race.  To illustrate how hard this is, in 2018 the split on Rockliff's surplus was 45% Brooks, 20% Jaensch, 9% Ellis, and I'm sure Ellis's share has grown.  

Thursday: Update today but little has changed - Jaensch still needs to beat Ellis by 17.8% or Brooks by 18.4% to get out of third in the race on Rockliff's surplus.  

Friday: Update today, Ellis has passed Brooks again, Jaensch behind Brooks by 18.0% of Rockliff's surplus.

Tuesday 11th: What to watch for: The Braddon preference distribution will start with the surplus of Jeremy Rockliff, followed by cutting from the bottom up until someone else gets quota, which will take a long time.  For the competing Liberals, this (c. 7500 votes' worth) is the single biggest event in the cutup, and I think Jaensch needs to bridge well over half of the current deficit of 1362 votes on these to have a realistic chance.  In the event that he's still in the mix the next most important exclusions are fellow Liberals Hendriks and Sheehan, and it will be a while before we get up to those.  Labor preferences shouldn't have much impact on the Liberal contest but the substantial numbers of votes leaving the Shooters, the Greens (though not many of these will go to the Liberals) and eventually Garland will have some impact.  Still, Jaensch needs to do nearly all the work on the Liberal preferences as it is hard to see the others helping him by more than a few hundred votes.  

Tuesday 11:30 No new numbers have been posted yet.

12:03 Final primaries are up.  Ellis leads Brooks by 23.  Brooks leads Jaensch by 1369.  On the Labor side, Broad is 394 ahead of Dow and Dow is 1508 ahead of Keay.  

12:20 Rockliff's surplus has been thrown and Brooks leads Jaensch by 999 while Jaensch has done well and leads Ellis by 55.  Jaensch got 33.6% of the surplus, Brooks 28.6%, Ellis 14.3%, Hendriks 11.4%, Sheehan 7.6% and a mere 4.5% leaked.  It is now highly likely that Brooks will win because while one of the others might yet catch him it will be difficult for both to do so.  

1:08 Plowing through some minor exclusions here; it will be a while before we get any significant changes.  Jaensch lead after two exclusions 48.

4:34 A tie in the Braddon exclusions with Amanda Diprose excluded on countback instead of Tammy Milne.  This will be somewhat informative about the split and leakage in the Labor ticket.  There has been some talk about a possible 4 Liberal result if the split in Labor's ticket becomes uneven but I'm not buying it for reasons stated at the top of this post.  Little change on the Liberal side with Jaensch ahead by 47.

5:45 Following Diprose's exclusion Broad continues to lead Dow by 516 with Keay 1384 behind.  12.5% of Diprose's votes leaked. 

6:27 After Milne's exclusion Jaensch now leads Ellis by 27 votes.   

Wednesday 10 am: After the exclusion of Michelle Rippon, the even split in the Labor ticket is still holding up and Broad and Dow should go ahead of some of the Liberals when Justine Keay is eventually excluded.  We now have the exclusion of Sheehan which is the first Liberal ticket exclusion and extremely important for Jaensch and Ellis.  Both Sheehan and Lara Hendriks are Devonport based which might not help Ellis.  Jaensch currently leads Ellis by 15 votes.  

11:45 Big boost to Ellis off Sheehan!  He is now 274 ahead of Jaensch.  

12:45 We now have the exclusion of Brenton Jones (Shooters).  Have a funny feeling Adam Brooks might do well off these.  

2:07 Which he did.  A handy break for Ellis, increasing his lead by 80 votes here.  The major party split slightly favoured the Liberals.  The next exclusion is Briggs (Greens) which might help Jaensch a little.

4:34 Briggs excluded.  Ellis is 364 ahead and now the exclusion of Hendriks, and Jaensch needs to make some ground up here because I don't think he can close that down off Garland alone.  (The Keay votes will nearly all stay within Labor.)

5:51 And Jaensch is back ahead now by 205!  It's all on Garland (and leaks from Labor).  Also Brooks' lead over Jaensch has come down to 335 but for Jaensch and Ellis to both get over him they need to between them get 875 votes more from Garland (and leaks) than Brooks does, and for the breakdown between them to be right.  About a quarter of Garland's votes will probably exhaust with the rest about 60-40 to Labor so I'm thinking only about 2000 will reach the Liberal ticket, perhaps not even that many.  Can Ellis beat Brooks by 540 on these?  Perhaps given that Garland's vote is concentrated on the far NW where Ellis does best, it's possible.  

Note that that rogue wave possibility that the Liberals win 4 still hasn't been completely laid to rest because of the very even split in the Liberal ticket.   But for it to happen there would need to be a very uneven split on Keay's preferences (somewhere around 2-1, which there's no reason to expect) and even then Labor could count on some help from Craig Garland.  

Thursday 11:13 Keay is excluded and Broad and Dow are clear, but it was close-ish (Broad 573 clear of Ellis, which won't be caught).  Ellis has gained on Labor leakage and is 178 behind,  Brooks is 397 up on Jaensch so Ellis and Jaensch need to beat him by 972 combined on Garland votes, which is exceedingly unlikely.  

It's quite possible Dow will cross quota on the Garland votes; she needs 1012.  If she does (or if Broad does; he needs 1468) we may see a little surplus as an encore to the Garland distribution.

1:20 Dow has crossed with a surplus of 980 which will elect Broad, so the favourable Garland preferences have moved Labor away from a one-seat result (which they were only .05 quotas off avoiding before Garland).  Ellis is now 266 behind and I cannot see that being closed; it is very unlikely he will even get 266 votes from here.  

2:12 Dow surplus thrown creating a Broad surplus of 733 votes.  Jaensch 276 ahead.  Suspect a lot of these will exhaust.  

4:00 All over - Jaensch actually passed Brooks by 38 votes, Brooks beats Ellis by 312 votes.