Not-A-Poll Reset: McGowan Resigns

Roger Cook was elected unopposed as the new WA Labor leader today as expected and is about to be sworn in as the new WA Premier following the resignation of Mark McGowan.  This means it's time to reset this site's Next Leader To Go Not-A-Poll, voting for which is open in the sidebar.

McGowan resigned citing exhaustion after just over six years as Premier and almost eleven and a half years as party leader.  His electoral legacy is a thumping win from Opposition in 2017 followed by turning WA for the time being into a one-party state in 2021.  Influenced as the latter result was by COVID politics, federal drag with a potent sprinkling of Palmer dust and a remarkably hapless state Opposition, I don't expect to see a 69.7% 2PP in a state election again in my lifetime.  It's surreal to realise that it was not always such - not only did Labor lose the 2013 election heavily (for which McGowan was generally not blamed) but in 2016 there was a semi-serious push to not have him as leader at all despite polling evidence showing that his numbers were such that few Opposition Leaders could even dream of.  

McGowan's replacement, Roger Cook, has been deputy party leader for almost fifteen years, but even that is slightly less time than Jeremy Rockliff was deputy leader for before becoming Tasmanian Premier, and Rockliff is not the all-time record holder for this either (Eric Willis, for one, was Deputy longer).  

So did anyone pick the departure of McGowan in this site's poll?  

One solitary voter out of 400 picked Mark McGowan as the next leader to leave!  Congratulations to whoever that was.  The winning vote was cast on the evening of April 3rd from an IP address that may have been based in the Melbourne area.  It does not appear that Mark McGowan was in Melbourne on that day.

Going into the current round at least six of the candidates have an obvious case.  In randomised order:

*  Annastacia Palaszczuk has had a bad recent YouGov poll.  Come October 2024 her government will be nearly ten years old and presumably federally dragged, and could easily lose assuming that she hasn't moved on earlier.  

* Natasha Fyles' government is next to face a scheduled election and while I've seen no NT polling there are anecdotal claims that Labor has ruffled some feathers and is very capable of losing.  

*  Peter Dutton is a first-term Opposition Leader (though historically these usually last the full first term) whose side is polling pretty badly and even recently lost its own seat in a by-election.  

* Jeremy Rockliff has recently lost his majority and has no shortage of other turbulence to deal with (and Tasmania does not have fixed terms).  

* Daniel Andrews has been Premier for a long time by modern standards.

* Andrew Barr has been Chief Minister for nearly as long as Andrews.

It will be interesting to see who people pick in this round and whether the poll can get it right!