The Amazing 2026 South Australian Election: Final Lower House Results And Poll Performance

SA 2026 ALP 34 (+5) Lib 5 (-9) ON 4 (+4) IND 4 (-)
(Changes from pre-election/notional; Labor gained two seats from Liberal during 2022-6 term)

Estimated 2PP ALP 57.89 vs Liberal (+3.3)

Estimated "Shadow 2PP" ALP 58.19 vs One Nation

The 2026 South Australian lower house was remarkable in so many ways.  It makes Queensland 1998 seem almost boring by comparison, except that Queensland 1998 was there first.  Maybe all elections are going to be like this now and this soon will not seem so unusual but if that's so my colleagues and I are going to have a very busy time in the future!

All manner of curious things happened here.  Finally, someone (Lou Nicholson in Finniss) won a state or federal seat from fourth on primaries; hooray we have lived to see it.  Both majors missed the 2CP in Stuart and Mount Gambier in the first such cases since Nicklin 2001.  The Liberal Opposition missed more 2CPs (29) than they made (18) and were outpolled by One Nation (unprecedented) but are still the Opposition.  Worse than that they missed nine 3CPs as well and even managed to finish fifth in Port Adelaide and Black - Black being a seat they won at the previous election!  And so on.  It was obvious this was going to be a very messy election - a little while out I thought how on earth will we ever make a pendulum from THIS - but aspects of it were even more unique than I saw coming.

Legislative Council 2026: Rosevears

ROSEVEARS (2020 margin Lib vs IND 0.57%)

This is my second guide to the Legislative Council this year.  My guide for Huon is here and my latest guide to voting patterns in the upper house is up.   

I expect to be doing live coverage of the Legislative Council elections on this site on election night, scheduled for Saturday May 2.  However, updates to this page in the lead-up will probably be less frequent than normal. 

The current numbers in the Council are three Liberal, three Labor, one Green and eight independents, with the independents ranging fairly evenly across the Green to Liberal spectrum.  Labor gives up one vote on the floor and in the committee stages because it holds the Presidency.  As the major parties frequently vote together, the Government has not had an especially difficult time of it in the upper chamber lately, most notably getting the hugely controversial Macquarie Point stadium through 9 votes to 5.  But that is not to say the Liberals get everything their own way, for instance having their legislation to wind up greyhound racing referred to an inquiry.

This year sees just two Legislative Council contests, being the first defence for independent Dean Harriss in Huon and likewise for Liberal Jo Palmer in Rosevears.