The Electorate
Generally the signs from polling have been that the Liberals are on track to win three seats at least in each of Bass, Braddon and Lyons, are likely to only win two in Denison and may win either two or three in Franklin. What makes Franklin so tight is that if the Liberals do win three seats they will need to unseat at least one of Premier Lara Giddings, David O'Byrne or Greens Leader Nick McKim. Yet my interpretation of recent polling is that the Liberals are running at very close to the support level needed to dislodge one of these three.
The difficulty for the Liberals in Franklin is leakage. Will Hodgman polled 1.90 quotas in his own right out of a party total of 2.47 in 2010. He may well poll even more this time around. I will be surprised if any of Jacquie Petrusma, Paul Harriss or Bernadette Black poll close to a quota. If two of them are going to win then they will be doing so from Will Hodgman's surplus, plus the votes of the unsuccessful Liberal candidates. Between them the two potential Liberal winners might well be needing well over a quota in preferences to win. This compares with McKim, Giddings and O'Byrne, who between them will poll nearly all the votes for their tickets, with probably very little opportunity for leakage.
