Yes trails about 45.0-55.0 in aggregated public polling (as of 13 Aug, pending new data)
No now leading on aggregate in every state, but Yes still ahead of national total in four states
Time for another Voice polling roundup. There has been relatively little new data in the four weeks since the last update and this article includes some historic analysis that suggests that the current state polling picture for the Voice is actually highly unusual. At the moment the state polling picture is irrelevant because No is ahead nationwide, but a benign state distribution is one thing Yes does have going for it should the national picture improve or if polls are underestimating Yes for some unprecedented reason. What I find here is that it is almost unprecedented historically for the state picture not to be a drag, so it will be interesting to see if that holds up. Is the double majority a sleeping curse that will wake up in the months to come or in the final results, or is it really going to be a non-issue this time around? It turns out that if it is a non-issue, there's a reason for it, and that reason is Queensland.
Federal cross-poll average 55.2% to Labor
(Cross-poll average expected to overestimate Labor's actual standing by c.1%)
It's been a long time since I released a federal polling roundup (several attempts have been commenced then lost in the longer weeds of why Resolve gets such different results from other pollsters) but I thought this would be an appropriately random time to put one out. A new Voice roundup is also likely in the next week or two, but to save the suspense, the No lead is continuing to build (Yes is now behind about 45-55 on cross-poll aggregate). There are weak signs that the rate of decline may have stopped accelerating and might even be slowing but that's not enough for Yes which unless the polls are very wrong needs to start making real gains.
I've been meaning for some time to put up an article about the already very often polled issue that is the upcoming Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, not so much to talk about results of specific polls but to cover general issues that are important in framing discussion of the polling and the outlook for the first referendum since 1999. Following the release of the question wording and the Coalition's announcement that it will support a No vote to the current wording, now seems as good a time as any (the truth being up til now I simply haven't had the time!)
Some basics: referendums in Australia have a well-known record of mostly failing (8 successes out of 44) but as noted by Peter Brent the record is even worse if introduced by Labor (1 out of 25). Referendums introduced mid-term are especially prone to being treated like by-elections and thus drubbed. A mid-term referendum introduced by Labor and lacking bipartisan support is historically the kind of horse whose prospects are summarised in form guides with the word "No." Can the Voice referendum defy these odds?
A general trend in polling of referendum-type measures is underestimation of the No vote in final polls, and we saw this most recently here with the same sex marriage postal survey. But not only can final polls underestimate the No vote, it is also the case that support for referendum measures can decline, sometimes very dramatically, over the course of the debate.
Today's quick Poll Roundup is provoked by one of the more curious and spurious interpretations by an actual pollster that I've seen. Today's Resolve poll had Labor leading 40-31 on primary votes, which while down on December and January is still the same 9-point lead they held in September and twice in October and off a one point higher primary vote than those. It would come out to a 2PP of around 58-42 to Labor*, which if repeated at an election would result in Labor gaining about 20 seats from the Coalition and winning in one of the biggest landslides ever seen with about 97 seats to the Coalition's 38. Yet Resolve's Jim Reed was quoted as declaring that “It looks like Albanese and Labor’s election honeymoon is over,”. The main justification for this was that Labor had come down slightly from even greater highs in polls taken over the holiday season. The other was movements of a few points from Labor and unsure to the Coalition across a raft of attribute and leadership polling measures, many of which were within the poll's in-theory margin of error and many of which still showed Labor way ahead anyway. (The accompanying article says jobs was one of Labor's biggest setback areas, but on jobs the Coalition's gains came entirely from "someone else" and "undecided").
At the end of each year I release an annual review of federal polling. See the 2021 edition here and/or click the annual poll review tab for articles back to 2014.
I'll start by saying this was a great year for polling generally with a good industry result in the federal election (after a famous failure in 2019), a very good result for final polls in the Victorian state election, and YouGov/Newspoll performing very well in South Australia.
How many polls?
Once again the business of counting how many polls there have been is complicated by Morgan's habit of often releasing only the 2PP from a poll sample. In all I count 87 readings, the most since 2017, from what I consider to be mainline pollsters:
* 12 Newspolls before the election and four after. The dramatic slowing in release of Newspoll post-election makes me suspect YouGov had a contract for sixteen (the same number as 2021).
* Six Resolves before the election and five after, however only two of the pre-election polls and none since had a pollster-derived 2PP (I've calculated last-election preferences for those that didn't)
* 14 Morgans before the election and 30 Morgan readings post-election, however nearly all the Morgans since the election have been 2PP only.
* Nine Essential readings before the election and two afterwards.
* Four Ipsos polls before the election
* One Freshwater Strategy poll this month
There may be more pre-election Morgan readings that I missed. I have not included Dynata (lobby group poll) or anything from KORE (panel survey with numerous red flags) or ANUPoll (wildly inaccurate with incomplete data).
Enough polls have now appeared for the new Albanese Labor government that I think it is worthwhile summarising where things are at. The limited polling data available is all over the place but on average points to a substantial honeymoon boost in favour of the new Albanese Labor government.
While we haven't seen this kind of honeymoon polling for a while, it has been historically normal for governments elected from opposition. A phase with a new government averaging above 54-46 occurred for six of the previous seven new governments, the exception being the Abbott government which never got above about 53% on aggregation in its early months and hence never matched the 53.5% 2PP it had been elected with. (This indicates the extent to which the election of the Abbott government was a repudiation of Labor's Rudd/Gillard/Rudd shambles rather than a positive endorsement of the alternative.)
Lopsided honeymoon polls get a lot of attention but whether we are still seeing them in twelve months, six months or even three months remains to be seen. The longest runs of mostly 54+ 2PP polling were for the Rudd government elected in 2007 (just over two years), the Howard government elected in 1996 (14 months) and the Hawke government elected in 1983 (most of the next two years though with a brief spell below after about five months). The Menzies government's post-1949 phase lasted about eight months while the Whitlam 1972 and Fraser 1975 victories were good for about four months of basking on laurels. (The difference is that Fraser's government then mostly kept the polling lead until a year and a half in, while Whitlam's soon lost the lead altogether.)
Herewith a roundup of polling following the Budget. It's been a long time since I had time for the last federal polling roundup here, so I just want to set the polling scene before moving on, time (what is that?) permitting, to Tasmanian House of Reps seat guides, a Tasmanian Senate guide [EDIT: that will come after nominations are released] and hopefully a general assessment of the prospects for the Senate. In short, the government's current polling is rather bad, but it is not all over yet. To take things pollster by pollster, with the three who are Australian Polling Council members at the top and the laggards and backsliders at the bottom:
After being in a merely historically dicey polling position for much of 2021, the Morrison Government starts this year in more serious trouble.
Last night's was one of those Newspolls that deserves a quick post because of the dramatic nature of the figures. The Morrison Government starts the year down 44-56 on primary votes of Coalition 34 Labor 41 Green 11 One Nation 3 Others 11. Scott Morrison is on a net rating of -19 (38-57), Anthony Albanese is on net zero (by 2022!) (43-43) and Morrison leads on the skewed "Better Prime Minister" indicator by 43-41.
This all represents:
* The Coalition's worst Newspoll 2PP since it polled a pair of 44s in August-September 2018 immediately after Malcolm Turnbull was removed as Prime Minister.
* The Coalition's worst primary vote in the same period, and equal second-worst of all time.
* Labor's best primary vote since December 2018.
* Morrison's worst net satisfaction rating since the early 2020 bushfires, marginally above the -22 he sank to during that time.
* Albanese's best net satisfaction since March 2021. Albanese is now 19 points ahead on comparative netsat after only taking the lead one poll ago.
* Morrison's lowest lead on the skewed "Better Prime Minister" question since the bushfire period (in which time Albanese briefly led).
* However, one of the very few cases of a Prime Minister leading on Better PM while this far behind on voting intention. Not a record in that regard, eg Morrison led by 6 in the second of the 44-56 Newspolls after the removal of Turnbull.
At the end of each year I release a review of federal polling results for the year. See the 2020 edition here, or click the "annual poll review" tab for articles back to 2014.
How many polls?
Again the business of counting poll results for 2021 has been complicated by Morgan releasing eight 2PPs as dots on a graph only, and by not yet having anything from Essential since mid-November. (Essential drops its voting intention results in a batch every three months though has said it will be releasing them faster as the election approaches).
This year saw 16 federal Newspolls released, tying 2020 as the sparsest year since 1991. Essential has so far released 23, with probably one more to come. Morgan released 15 as full poll reports, plus another eight that have so far appeared solely as dots on a graph. New player Resolve Strategic graced us with eight. That's a total of 62 fully released and eight as 2PPs only, putting us up again to around a level of poll frequency last seen in 2018, but well below the years before.
I last wrote a federal poll roundup in early August. At that time I noted that the implied 2PP polling numbers of Newspoll, Morgan, Essential and Resolve this year had been more or less identical. No new Essential voting intention polling has been seen since mid-July though another dump may appear within days.
This is what we've seen since the last roundup:
* Newspoll (late August) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 36 Labor 40 Green 10 PHON 3 others 11)
* Newspoll (mid-Sept) 53-47 to Labor (Coalition 37 Labor 38 Green 10 PHON 3 others 12)
* Morgan (mid-August) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 37.5 Labor 37.5 Green 12.5 PHON 3.5 others 9)
* Morgan (late August) 54.5-45.5 to Labor (Coalition 37.5 Labor 38.5 Green 11.5 PHON 3 others 9.5)
* Morgan (mid-Sept) 52.5-47.5 to Labor (Coalition 38.5 Labor 35 Green 13 PHON 3 others 10.5)
* Resolve (mid-August) Coalition 40 Labor 32 Green 12 PHON 2 IND 10 others 3. Last election 2PP would be very roughly 50-50 (my formula gives 50.3 to Labor)
* Resolve (mid-Sept) Coalition 39 Labor 31 Green 10 PHON 4 IND 9 others 7. Last election 2PP would be very roughly 51-49 to Coalition (my formula gives 51.1)
Now, it's true that Morgan's use of respondent preferences is inflating its leads for Labor (in the last three polls by an average of 0.9 points compared to last election preferences). And it could be that the independent voters being (over-)reported by Resolve are actually much more left-leaning than the ones who split about 60-40 to Labor on preferences at the last election. But still, one of these polls is very clearly not like the others. Resolve has shown two consecutive Coalition primary leads of 8% while polls by other pollsters have had an average lead of minus 0.5. Two Resolve polls in a row have come out as massive, beyond margin-of-error outliers.
It's been a while since my last federal polling roundup and in that time the government's troubled vaccine rollout and the challenges polled by the Delta strain of COVID-19 seem to have put paid to government optimism about rushing off to an early election this spring. Indeed, recent weeks have seen the government record its worst 2PP polling of the term so far, though by historic standards it is not yet in severe poll-based trouble.
Voting Intention
Three weeks ago, four polls came out in quick succession:
* A Newspoll Coalition 39 Labor 39 Greens 10 One Nation 3 Others 9. The published 2PP was 53-47 to Labor but Labor probably got lucky on the rounding here. The average last-election 2PP for these primaries would be 52.5-47.5, and indeed when exactly the same primaries came out in early March, the 2PP was 52-48. Given that this one rounded to 53, it must have been at least 52.5 prior to rounding.
* Essential Coalition 37 Labor 36 Greens 10 One Nation 4 Others 6. After rescaling to remove undecided and get sum to 100, Coalition 39.8 Labor 38.7 Greens 10.8 One Nation 4.3 Others 6.5. The published 2PP is 47-45 (=51-49) to Labor under Essential's 2PP Plus method using (mostly) respondent preferences, but by last-election preferences I get 52.1 to Labor.
* Resolve Political Monitor Coalition 38 Labor 35 Greens 12 One Nation 4 "Independents" 7 Others 5. Resolve does not publish a 2PP. By last-election preferences these numbers come to about 52.0 to Labor if taken as published, but Resolve overestimates independents.
* Roy Morgan Coalition 39 Labor 37 Greens 11.5 One Nation 3 Others 9.5. Morgan's published 2PP was 52.5 (respondent preferences); I get 52.0 (last election).
In the last week two fresher polls have arrived:
* Another Newspoll with a 53-47 2PP to Labor, but this time with the Greens on 11 and Others on 8, which all else being equal suggests the 2PP this time was probably close to 53 prior to rounding.
* A Morgan with a 53.5% 2PP to Labor off primaries of Coalition 37 Labor 37 Green 12.5 One Nation 3 others 10.5. I get 53.3 (last election). This is the highest 2PP poll for Labor of the term except for some bushfire-era Morgans for which only 2PPs were back-released.
RESOLVE PM (Victoria state) Labor 37 Coalition 36 Green 9 IND 12 Others 5
2PP Estimate 54-46 to Labor. If numbers repeated at election, Labor would win easily (c. 50 seats)
"Independent" vote very likely to be overstated
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I've had too little time for writing here in recent weeks, largely because of a backlog of contract work that I had to clear after it built up during the Tasmanian snap election. There are a few pieces I have been working on that I do hope to finish some time but they will be well behind the news cycle should they actually appear. However, I wanted to make some comments about reporting of today's Resolve Political Monitor poll of Victorian state election voting. This furthers a concern I have had about some responses to the 2019 federal polling failure - that some media sources that commission or work with polls have responded with trendy solutions that lose information and then lead to worse reporting of what polls are actually claiming to show.
In my initial coverage of Resolve's entry to the major polling markets I noted that fingering two-party preferred figures as a major culprit in the 2019 federal polling failure was simply incorrect: polls were wrong overwhelmingly because their primary votes were wrong, with errors in preference estimation making only a small contribution to the failure. I doubted the claims that this would deliver readers "something deeper" than "the “horse race” nature of the way we reported the results of TPP questions" and suggested that what this would actually lead to was journalists reporting the horse race off primary votes. In the case of the reporting of this specific Victorian poll, the horse race commentary hasn't gone away, it's just got worse. It's like being told just the relative positions of the horses near the end of a race without being told one of them is flagging and the other is charging home strongly.
