Age And Canberra Are Still Killing State Governments

 Advance Summary

1. One of the most important factors in state election outcomes is the influence of whether the governing party at state level is in Government or Opposition federally.  To be the same party as the federal Government is a disadvantage.

2. Another important factor is the age of the state government, with governments tending to do worse the longer they have been in office.  

3. In the last six years, all same-party state governments that have faced elections have lost seats in significant numbers.

4. In the meantime, two of the three opposite-party governments gained seats (though one very old opposite-party government was defeated, but with a 2PP swing to it.)

4. It might seem logical that if the federal government at one state election was the same as at the previous election for that state, then this factor would not generate further swings against an incumbent state government of the same party, or further protection for one of the opposite party.

5. However, the evidence suggests otherwise.  It appears that more voters continue turning against state governments that are of the same party as the federal government, over successive elections, even when the same federal government had been in office at the state election before.

New South Wales 2019: Final Lower House Results And Poll Accuracy

Amid the gearing up for the federal election, the finalisation of the NSW election figures has been largely ignored.  For whatever reason it took a few weeks longer than last time to get to the final 2PP, which is necessary for assessing which polls performed the best among other things.  Though in this case, comparing polls is hardly worth the bother.

Vote Share, 2PP and Preference Change

The primary votes were 41.58% Coalition, 33.31% Labor, 9.57% Green and 15.54% Others (including 3.46% Shooters, Fishers and Farmers with the rest led by 1.53% Sustainable Australia, 1.52% Keep Sydney Open and 1.51% Animal Justice.) The 2PP was 52.02% to the Coalition, a 2.3% swing away from their 2015 result.

The overall two-party preference flow barely changed at all, with 33.0% of preferences flowing to Labor (-0.6%), 14.0% to Coalition (-0.8%) and 53.0% exhausting (+1.4%).  But overall what happened here was that the flow of Greens preferences strengthened, but this was cancelled out by the Greens' share of all non-major voting falling from just over 50% to just 38%.  In those seats in which Greens candidates were excluded, the preferences distributed at that stage flowed 51% to Labor with just 9% to Coalition and the rest exhausting.  The stronger flow in Lismore, 72%, was among the highest and was crucial to winning the seat, while East Hills would have been extremely close had Labor managed to match the state swing there.

NSW Legislative Council 2019: Button Press Day

Button press from 11 am Monday

Won off raw quotas: Coalition 7 ALP 6 Green 2 PHON 1 SFF 1
Coalition will win 8th seat

Labor 7, One Nation 2, CDP, LDP, AJP, KSO for final 3 seats

Labor very likely to win seat, One Nation likely but not so clear, CDP/LDP/AJP who knows, KSO remote chance only

Result

The result will be added here once known.  The count is expected to take a gruelling 45 minutes to one hour.  See https://twitter.com/nsw_upperhouse for updates and doubtless other #nswvotes sources.

2019 New South Wales Postcount: Legislative Council

Legislative Council NSW Summary:

Seats assumed won based on incomplete count Coalition 8 Labor 6 Green 2 One Nation 1 Shooters Fishers and Farmers 1

(2015 results and continuing MLCs were Coalition 9 Labor 7 Green 2 Shooters 1 Christian Dems 1 Animal Justice 1).

Summary of contest:

Close multi-party contest for remaining three seats.  Count is extremely complex.  The ABC website has been projecting seats as won directly off the check count and this is very unreliable.

Labor (#7) and One Nation (#2) currently appear well placed for two of these seats after preferences, though One Nation is vulnerable to leakage.

A preference race will occur between four parties for the final seat: Christian Democrats (now leading), Liberal Democrats, Animal Justice, Keep Sydney Open.   Keep Sydney Open appears to be struggling to catch Animal Justice.  Animal Justice appear to have at least realistic prospects of beating the other two after preferences.

Sustainable Australia was competitive earlier in the count but its primary vote does not appear to be sufficient.

2019 New South Wales Postcount: Lismore

(Link to main postcount thread)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LISMORE (2015 margin Nat 2.9% vs Green 2CP, Nat 0.2% vs Country Labor 2PP)

Key questions:

1. Who will be second after preferences between Janelle Saffin (Country Labor) and Sue Higginson (Greens)

Outlook: Very likely to be Saffin and assumed to be so given that both Nats and Greens have conceded.

2. If Saffin is second after preferences, who wins between Saffin (Country Labor) and Austin Curtin (Nationals)?

Outlook: Saffin

3. If Higginson is second after preferences, who wins between Higginson (Green) and Curtin (Nationals)?

Outlook: Probably Curtin, but there are no direct data on this

Overall outlook: Saffin (Country Labor) strongly expected to win

2019 New South Wales Wrap And Lower House Postcount

The Berejilklian Government has been returned with a very small majority

Expected final result Coalition 48 Labor 36 Green 3 Ind 3 SF+F 3 

Seats changing hands
Barwon (Nat to SF+F)
Murray (Nat to SF+F)
Coogee (Liberal to Labor)
Lismore (Nat to ALP)  link to Lismore thread

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This thread will give some summary remarks about the NSW Lower House count (which may be updated if necessary) and will also follow the postcount in a few undecided seats where only two candidates are in contention.  Lismore has thrown up another three-cornered contest that is of special interest and it will get its own thread.

2019 NSW Election Live Comments

Summary

Coalition has won the election - probably with a small majority 

Apparent wins Coalition 45 Labor 35 Green 3 Ind 3 SF+F 3, 4 in doubt
(Apparent wins are not necessarily all confirmed)

Apparent seat changes:

Barwon (Nat to SF+F) - but need to wait for Broken Hill booths
Murray (Nat to SF+F)
Coogee (Liberal to Labor)

In serious doubt:

Lismore (Nat vs Green vs ALP - long postcount ahead)
Dubbo (Nat vs IND - close)

In some doubt:

East Hills (Liberal leading Labor)
Upper Hunter (Liberal leading Labor)

Assumed won but at low doubt levels: 
Wollondilly (Liberal vs IND - no 2CP count available)
Penrith (Liberal leading Labor)

Commentary appears below the double line with latest comments scrolling to the top - refresh frequently for new comments once count starts.  Comment clearance during commentary will be slow and comments may not be replied to until very late.

NSW 2019: Final Day Roundup

SUMMARY: Polls imply likely Coalition victory, but if so, majority status is still touch and go.

This thread will cover anything I think is of interest re Saturday's election, starting with a pre-Newspoll look at where things might stand (but there is some weird stuff going on, so who knows) and followed up with anything I want to add once Newspoll (or any other late polls) come out.  I'll be working in the afternoon, so don't expect updates between about 11 am - 6 pm.

There will be live coverage here on election night from 6:00 pm and going through til very late, and the live thread may be started earlier in the day if there is anything of special interest going on.

A Token Post About Modelling The 2019 NSW Lower House Election

NSW (COALITION 52 ALP 34 GREEN 3 IND 3 SF+F 1)
Recent state polling suggests a hung parliament (approx 44 Coalition 41 ALP 3 Green 3-4 Ind 1-2 Shooters) - but there's hardly been any of it!

Update Monday 11/3: Polls over the long weekend (a uComms/ReachTEL at 51-49 to Labor and a Newspoll at 50-50) have been completely consistent with the assessments below.  

Rinse and repeat ... another state election is only weeks away and there's been virtually no public polling.  At this stage in the 2015 election cycle there had been five statewide polls, but so far this year there have been just two.  Perhaps they will come thick and fast in the next two weeks, but I have so little hope of that that I think the best I can do is write an article complaining about the lack of polling in the hope that my article becomes out of date as soon as possible.

Anyway, to briefly poke my head through a gap in what is often a very busy few weeks of the year for me (the dreaded "AGM season"), I thought I'd post some comments about where things might be at if the very limited public polling we've seen this year is anywhere near accurate - which it may not be.

New South Wales 2019: Battle Of The Unknowns

It's a personal tradition to release something on this site on Christmas Day if possible.  This year it was tempting to go with the annual Ehrlich Awards for Wrong Predictions, but one of the predictions on the shortlist still has a remote chance of being fulfilled in the few days left in this year, and also, it's a bit mean on the recipients to drop this year's collection at such a time. So that will come out early in the New Year, and in the meantime, nominations for any false predictions I may have missed regarding political events in the year 2019 are welcome.  See the original Ehrlich piece for the award rules.

Instead I've decided to go with a curtain-raiser for this year's biggest state election in New South Wales.  Currently the expected date of the NSW election is March 23, with the federal election generally expected to follow seven or eight weeks later.  An alternative scenario is the federal election being held on March 2, in which case it is possible to delay NSW until April 13, at the expense of a slowed post-count because of Easter.  There are some other scenarios, but it's highly likely the NSW election will be within about two months of the federal one, with a lot of rather anxious interest surrounding the question of whether it will be before or after.

New South Wales: Final Lower House Results And Poll Accuracy

The New South Wales Legislative Assembly election is fully counted.  The Coalition government led by Mike Baird has retained office with 54 seats to 34 for the ALP led by Luke Foley, 3 for the Greens and 2 Independents.

Many basic details of the results were covered in my day-after wrap Decisive Win For Coalition. Apart from Lismore falling back over the line on declaration votes and because the preference flow to the Greens was weaker than that to Labor, no seats have changed hands in the postcount, and in the end the swing did not increase significantly in the postcount.

Vote Share, 2PP And Preference Change

The primary votes were 45.63% Coalition, 34.08% Labor, 10.29% Green and 10.00% Others (including 3.24% Christian Democrats and 2.02% No Land Tax with most of the rest for independents).  The 2PP was 54.32% to the Coalition, a 9.9% swing.

Antony Green has posted a lot of goodies about the result including a very comprehensive new pendulum format that deals well with the three-cornered contests.