EMRS: Surprise Boost For Rockliff In Pre-Lamblowup Poll

EMRS Lib 36 (+1) ALP 27 (-1) Greens 14 (-1) JLN 8 (+1) IND 12 (=) others 3 (=)
IND likely overstated, others likely understated
No significant difference from previous poll or election
Significant lead increase for Rockliff as Preferred Premier

A quick post about a poll I don't at this stage have a lot to say about.  The August quarterly EMRS poll is out, but it's showing its age as its in-field period (14-21 Aug) ended a few days before the dramatic events of the weekend, with two of the three Jacqui Lambie Network MPs kicked out of the party before they could leave, and Michael Ferguson resigning as Infrastructure Minister.   We may never know if even these events had had any impact on the government's standing with voters, as by the time the next poll rolls around, any impact may have washed out.

Labor would have us believe that the hung parliament is killing investor confidence, which would presumably flow through to voting intention somewhere, but this poll is indistinguishable statistically from the previous one and also from the March election.  If EMRS is correct, between the election and August nothing lasting happened at all.  An election held in mid-August would, based on this poll, have returned more of the same.  When the survey dashboard goes live I will check for anything notable in the seat-by-seat patterns but on such statewide numbers the Liberals would always be the largest party and would not be near majority.  

The surprise in this poll is that Jeremy Rockliff has jumped to a 45-30 lead as Preferred Premier over Dean Winter, up from 40-32 last time.  Better leader scores skew to incumbents and tend to disadvantage new leaders so to be only eight points behind in the first one was a solid debut for Winter, but now he is 15 behind, which is the biggest gap since Peter Gutwein led by 19 in March 2022.  (At the time Gutwein's COVID bounce in popularity was deflating following reopening of the state's borders).  Only two of the five points Rockliff has gained here come from Winter, with one from don't know and two from the fact that the previous poll, somehow, only summed to 98 (which I don't think even rounding can explain).  The most obviously controversial thing Winter has done in the last three months is announce support for the UTAS city move, which the Hobart City part of Clark voted three to one against in 2022 and nobody else seems to really care that much about.  The dashboard will be worth a look to see where the blowout in Rockliff's lead has occurred.

Once again though I would find it more useful to see approval scores for the leaders individually; better leader scores are always a mess where you don't know if what's happening is that the voters like the leader who has gained more, that they are displeased with the one who has lost ground, or both or even neither. 

Overall this is yet another poll where Labor doesn't break out of the high 20s/low 30s band it has been stuck in seemingly forever.  It's still in theory an extremely long time until the next election, but every time something happens that prompts the question "is this the thing that get's Labor's support moving towards government?" the answer continues to be "no".  

More comments later once the dashboard goes up.