EMRS: New Poll More Similar To Last Election

EMRS Lib 34 (-1) ALP 30 (-1) Grn 13 (-1) JLN 8 (+2) IND 12 (+1) other 3 (=)
IND likely to be slightly overstated at expense of others.
Liberals would probably be largest party in election "held now"
Possible seat outcome for this poll Lib 15 ALP 11 Grn 5 IND 3 JLN 1

A new EMRS poll is up for Tasmania.  The November poll saw some signs of the long-struggling Labor opposition finally making some progress but this poll is more similar to the previous election.  Compared to the election, and after adjusting for the generic "independent" vote being somewhat overstated, Labor and the Jacqui Lambie Network are up slightly at the expense of the Liberals.  However the Lambie Network has imploded in the parliament and the most recent stated intention of Jacqui Lambie was to re-endorse only her sole remaining MP, Andrew Jenner.  Thus, it is not clear the robust polling for the JLN brand (which appeals strongly to a low-information cohort dominated by working-class blokes) actually means anything.

The leadership figures show that both Jeremy Rockliff and Dean Winter have taken a net favourability hit compared with the November poll, with Rockliff on a net rating of +10 (36-25 with the +10 being after rounding, down five points) and Winter on a net +6 (18-11 ditto, down 8).  These net numbers are still acceptable for both, but Winter still has a recognition problem especially in the north - something that is being picked up by EMRS's approach of not stating the role of the person who they are testing recognition for.  In fact, this sample has an even higher "never heard of" score for Winter (27%) than the previous 18%, which itself raised a few eyebrows.  This said, firstly it is possible some voters could have a strong opinion either way of 'the new Tasmanian Labor leader guy' without actually knowing his name, so the 27% may be an overestimate.  Also, it isn't catastrophic; the example I always quote is that 39% of NSW voters could not identify Barry O'Farrell as Premier in one poll after he had been Premier for a year and a half.  However this is consistent with a general issue of State Labor lacking profile and cut-through across the whole state that also dogged it during the 2024 campaign.  Jeremy Rockliff has also made a minor gain on preferred Premier (which favours incumbents), his lead now out to an acceptable 44-34 after shrinking to 43-37 last poll.

As this poll is very similar to the previous poll I have simply copied the model I was using for that one and adjusted it for the primary vote changes:

Seat by seat noting that this is all extremely rubbery especially with the doubt about JLN's future intentions:

Bass: In theory there's enough JLN or Independent vote for JLN to win if they run and hold their vote, or for the vote to coalesce with Rebekah Pentland if they don't.  I am not seeing a big pickup for Independents since Pentland and Miriam Beswick turned independent so I am assuming that at present this seat would go to Labor.

Braddon: With votes leaving JLN (or even if they don't) there has to be enough gas in the tank here at least for Craig Garland to repeat his 2024 run through the field, or perhaps for someone else to win the seat.  I've given one to the IND column and assumed that if JLN don't run enough would go back to the government for them to win a fourth seat.

Clark: Although it's not clear that the Greens win two on the quota totals, status quo 2-2-2-1 is the most likely.

Franklin: Labor and the Greens are both down 1% which hurts the preference flow between whichever is excluded and the other so I've assumed the Liberals, also down 1 but with their vote spread across three incumbents, just hang on to three here (very narrowly).

Lyons: With the increase in the JLN vote and Labor down on the previous poll, Andrew Jenner would probably hold on.

Overall I have 15 Lib 11 ALP 5 Grn 3 IND 1 JLN as a possible reading of this poll, one Lambie seat returning to each major.  Anyway it would be something fairly similar to the previous election.  Again Labor has not managed to break out of the very low 30s.  

The last three months have been reasonably quiet in state politics which is taking something of a backseat to the federal election.  The Government has gone a few months without any more scandals or stability threats but hasn't been rewarded for it in this poll.  It's really all a bucket of steaming meh because the only party that is polling surprisingly well in this one is JLN but those may well be zombie voting intentions.  

Of course it's a very long time to the next election due in early 2028, unless the government collapses.  Hung parliaments in Tasmania frequently don't run full term but unless this government falls over on the floor I'd expect it to stick things out until at least late 2026.  

Other EMRS Matters

In the last cycle, EMRS attracted adverse national publicity over the number of pies it has fingers in, but there wasn't anything new in the Guardian's reporting on the polling front.  As a general view the acquistion of EMRS by two Font co-owners has been followed by the poll becoming more vigorous with an increase in issue polling, but also with a tendency to make too much of samples that are meaninglessly small, as noted in my previous article.  At this stage, I am not detecting anything to suggest that the voting intention polling has been in any way affected by the shift, and the addition of favourability ratings is something I cannot praise often enough.  

In late January, the Fontcast reported a Tasmania-only sample regarding keeping Australia Day on January 26, finding 56-34 support with Braddon support as high as 72-21 and Clark split 44-46.  These are very consistent figures with the national state of the debate, where opposition to the current date has receded in the wake of the Voice failure, with current "social cohesion" concerns possibly playing a role.  These numbers came from EMRS's online polling panel, which is different to its statewide quarterly omnibus poll.