Stafford By-Election: Prospects and Live

Stafford (ALP 5.32%)

Luke Richmond (ALP) vs Fiona Hammond (LNP) and others

Cause of by-election: death of Jimmy Sullivan (ALP/IND)

ALP retain with c. 4.4% swing to LNP

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Monday:  Not much more to see

Casey Briggs has tweeted that he understands there are not more than (and probably less than) 2000 postals to come, so further changes to the current 51.2-48.8 margin will be in tenths of a percent if that.

Sunday: Excuses excuses...

Steven Miles has been quoted offering a bizarre excuse for his party's poor result, claiming it was due to One Nation not running and saying "We will never know what the result would have been if they had run and not directed their supporters to vote for the LNP,".  Stafford is one of One Nation's worst seats in the state, had they run I estimate they would have got about 8%.  Most of their voters would have preferenced the LNP anyway.  Care of the 2017 election we have a window on what happens when One Nation recommends preferences to the LNP in some seats and Labor in others - the flow difference was around 10-12%.  So for an open ticket, half that.  This argument if it works at all isn't worth half a percent, it might be worth a tenth of the swing if that.  In fact not all One Nation voters would have even been aware that their party recommended (not "directed") its voters to vote for the LNP, so probably even less.  And some of those who were aware would not have obeyed.

Miles has also referred to Fiona Hammond's local profile, but that was already present in the baseline since she was the candidate last time.  Indeed her time as a councillor was more recent then.  

Another excuse quoted by The Australian is “Right-of-centre voters, after the deal with One Nation, weren’t left with many alternatives in a field of nine candidates, and so we have seen a splintering of the vote amongst other left-of-centre parties.’’  But in fact there were four right wing candidates (up one from 2024) and the three minor righties between them got a 0.3% swing on the combined One Nation and Family First primary from 2024.  It is true that Labor's primary suffered from the extra competition on the left - but that does not explain half of the primary vote swing against Labor flowing through to 2PP swing as well.  

Queensland 2024: Final Results And Poll Performance

Queensland: LNP 52 ALP 36 KAP 3 GREEN 1 IND 1

2PP Estimate 53.76% to LNP (+6.89% from 2020)

The 2024 Queensland election is over.  At one stage it looked like it could be a bloodbath, and it was far from close despite some close-looking returns from the day booths, but it still ended up being only a routinely medium-heavy defeat for a decade old federally dragged government.  Labor was criticised for running so far to the left in this election but they did the right thing by ensuring they would hold a mass of seats in Brisbane in an election they were never going to win anyway.  The same strategies that were effective in not merely stopping the Greens taking more Labor seats but in recovering a seat from them (very narrowly) were also effective in holding off the Liberals in most of Brisbane, cutting losses to three seats on the city's eastern fringe.  For the LNP, mission accomplished, with a workable majority but without the hazards of an overly large backbench.  For the ALP, relief.  It could have been a great deal worse.

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)

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Queensland 2017 Live

Labor appears to have won the election, but majority status is touch and go.

Approx Labor 43 LNP 38 KAP 2 ONP 1 IND 1 Unclear 8 (including one ALP vs Green)

(From base of Labor 49 LNP 42 KAP 2:)
Labor Gains from LNP: Redlands, Aspley
Very likely Labor/Green Gain from LNP: Maiwar
LNP gains from Labor: Bundaberg and probably Burdekin (notional ALP)
Very likely ONP gain from Labor: Mirani
Likely IND gain from LNP: Noosa

Complicated: Hinchinbrook (LNP), Mundingburra (ALP - Labor favoured), Thuringowa (ALP - Labor favoured), Macalister (ALP - Labor favoured), Rockhampton (ALP)

Unclear ALP vs LNP: Pumicestone (ALP leads in ALP seat), Gaven (ALP leads in LNP seat)

Queensland Election Night Comments

Seats Apparently Won: LNP 39 ALP 42 OTHER 3 
2 likely ALP:  Mt Ommaney, Ferny Grove
Unclear LNP vs ALP: Mansfield, Whitsunday
Unclear ALP vs IND: Maryborough

Outcome: ALP government highly likely, unclear whether in majority.  LNP minority government possible but currently looks unlikely.

10:55 Labor's real-count leads in Mt Ommaney and Ferny Grove are both at 1.1% now.  Those will be hard to close down even with the size of post-count and the LNP needs at least one of them if not both.

10:35 On last-election preferences the current primaries would pan out to about a 50.5% 2PP for the LNP which would probably just have been enough to retain office (especially with likely pickup on postals.) If Labor wins outright then it will likely be because the LNP has been a tad unlucky with the split of close seats as well.  A lot will be asked about why all the late polls were all 52:48, though that is not a particularly bad miss and well within each's margin of error.  It seems there's been a late swing to Labor as undecided voters made up their minds, though this factor is normally no friend of the ALP or oppositions generally.

Victorian Poll Roundup: Endless 52-48 Edition

2PP aggregate: 51.8 (-1.4) to ALP by last-election preferences (52.6 expected preferences)
Current seat projection based on aggregate: 48-40 to Labor

This is probably the second-last of my posts on Victorian polling prior to the main day of polling for the election on Saturday.  I will be out on a field trip in the day on Friday.  Another post is expected either overnight Friday or Saturday morning - once I am satisified we have the results of all the major polls we're going to get.   Then it will be on to the live coverage on Saturday night from 6 pm.  I cannot promise you fancy graphics or dancing swing charts but I hope my live blogging will be of some interest.

(Speaking of things of some interest concerning Victorian elections, a plug for Adam Carr's page on early Victorian elections 1851-1864!)

This week's polling

Lately we've had new state polls from Morgan (twice), Essential and Galaxy.  The first Morgan SMS poll taken from 21-24 Nov and with a sample size of 1152 produced a 52:48 2PP off primaries of 39.5 to the Coalition, 33.5 to Labor, 17.5 to the Greens and 9.5 to others.  This series had favoured the Greens by an average of at least five points compared to other pollsters (indeed 17.5 was its lowest reading for them so far), so it was hard to tell whether this result signified that trend waning slightly, or that it was actually a not so good sample for the party.  The series also clearly skews against the ALP compared to other pollsters.