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.

SA Election: Some General Modelling Comments

Note to media of all kinds: this long weekend (10-12 March) I am not available for in-person interviews.  My phone will be switched off most of the long weekend - you may be able to get me on Saturday morning or Monday night, or if you leave a message with an after-hours number I may be able to return your call at night on Saturday or Sunday.

Note to posters: Comment clearing may be slow and replies slower for the next few days.

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The two-week gap between this year's Tasmanian and South Australian elections means I will at least be able to do live comments on South Australia.  However, the Tasmanian campaign hasn't done wonders for my ability to devote energy to the SA contest.  I may be able to do another piece with more detailed modelling on South Australia next week, but I'm not sure I will have time for this yet.  This piece just makes a range of general comments that I think are important to trying to model the outcome.

WA Washup: Another One Bites The Dust

It's a familiar script.  Five conservative state and territory governments have sought re-election since the Coalition took power federally and only one of the five (NSW) has survived.  Western Australia joins Queensland, the Northern Territory and (less emphatically) Victoria as jurisdictions where Coalition incumbents have been given the boot in the last few years.

The outcome in WA has been on the cards for years, and the fact that the Barnett government lost breaks no new ground by itself.  Defeat could be predicted as probable based on a combination of what I call federal drag (being of the same party as in power federally), the age of the state government, and the federal government's poor polling.  Indeed even Colin Barnett's poor personal ratings alone suggested he was already likely to lose this election less than a year out from his very strong 2013 result.  There's a strong case that Barnett should have been removed at least a year ago. Those who failed to do so look quite silly now, but they are geniuses compared to those who wanted to replace Mark McGowan with someone not even in the parliament because McGowan was thought to be too boring to win the election!

Legislative Council 2016: Apsley and Elwick

Added May 7: For live results and postcount comments go here.

This is my candidate guide and preview for the two Tasmanian Legislative Council seats that are up for elections this year.  Nominations closed on April 15, and the elections are on Saturday May 7th; I expect to post live comments on the counts as per normal.  However I will be busy in the week leading up to the election so updates may be briefer or less frequent than usual.

These elections are important for the future legislative program of the Hodgman Liberal Government. At present it usually but not always has the numbers upstairs (see voting patterns).  If both seats fall to Labor, then the left will have a blocking majority on major contentious issues.  Even one Labor win would be quite significant for the balance of the chamber.

Despite the implications of Legislative Council elections for state politics, many LegCo elections are decided in a similar way to local council voting, based on personal profile, community connections and "parish pump" type campaigning.  Attempts to attack incumbents both right (Wilkinson, Dean) and left (Finch, Gaffney) over their voting records have failed spectacularly in recent years - but at least state political issues are now being discussed at all in these campaigns.

Fisher, State By-Elections and Federal Drag

Nat Cook (ALP) provisionally won, defeating Dan Woodyatt (Ind) by 226 votes at the critical exclusion point then Heidi Harris (Lib) by 23 votes.  This is currently being recounted, with Cook defeating Woodyatt by 219 in the recount and defeating Harris by nine votes. Cook will now take her seat and Labor will have an outright majority.

The win may well be challenged in the Court of Disputed Returns.  In this case Labor will hold the seat until such time as the court decides the case.  The court could confirm the win, order a by-election or declare the Liberals to have won the seat.  

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Postcount Introduction

This article follows late counting in the South Australian Fisher by-election.  As at the close of counting on the night this seemed like a very likely win for the ALP who had a 52.1% two-party preferred lead against the Liberals.  Even with a very large percentage of prepolls such leads are very rarely caught.  Although there was still some threat from the independent Dan Woodyatt, I thought I should place the at that stage apparently likely ALP win in its historic context.  That was the theme of the original article. 

Queensland Polling: Careful With That Pendulum, Eugene

ReachTEL (Queensland): 51:49 to LNP (LNP 38.7 ALP 34.4 Greens 6.1 PUP 15.4 Other 5.4)
Interpretation based on this poll "if election held now": LNP would probably win; majority status touch and go.
Widespread claim that poll implies c. 40 seat losses and defeat for LNP is wrong.

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I'm currently conducting a poll on the sidebar on whether readers want more shorter federal polling articles instead of longer ones with updates tacked onto the end. The results will also be used to inform how I cover state polls for states other than Tasmania.  This piece (not that it's that short) is a bit of a trial run for the more-but-shorter option and will not be endlessly updated.  One of my main concerns about the shorter option has been how to keep the titles snappy, rather than having an endless procession of pieces called "Poll Roundup Week 37" or "Essential: 51:49 For The Sixth Week In A Row While The Universe Burns". Anyway, I hope that the title for this one passes muster, with apologies to early Pink Floyd and to all readers whose name is actually Eugene.

For an extreme example of how I've approached state polls up til now, see my previous Queensland article Is Campbell Newman Actually In Trouble?, which started in April and ran through to the end of June.  The comments on the recent quarterly Newspoll aggregate (51-49 to Labor) bear repeating: while the result was more generous to Labor than everything else about in recent months, it did put a dampener on weak signs that the LNP were recovering from the low-50s 2PPs they were getting in previous months.  The poll also showed Campbell Newman at a new personal low: a -24 Newspoll netsat, giving him the worst result for any Queensland Premier bar Bjelke-Petersen and Bligh.  I noted that if Newman can win the next election he will equal Bob Carr's record for the worst netsat from which any Australian state premier in the last few decades has been re-elected.  That said, given that the poll was worse for the LNP than others around the same time, it may be exaggerating Newman's plight.

Victorian Liberals: Going, Going ...

This is an overview of the state of play in the leadup to the Victorian election, prompted by recent polling.  I expect to make more detailed modelling attempts much closer to that poll.  In summary, this article argues that the Baillieu-turned-Napthine government's first-term status provides no argument against the reasons why it could lose.  While the defeat of this government is not yet a done deal, psephologically, it has at least one foot in the grave.  There is still time to climb out, but it won't be easy.

One of the themes I've been following on this site is the way in which federal politics contaminates state voting intention.  As noted in Is Campbell Newman Actually In Trouble? life gets much harder for state governments when they have a party of their own persuasion in power in Canberra, especially if the federal party isn't polling well.  This is also well covered in Peter Brent's current piece, Dog Days For State Conservatives.  Of the four conservative state governments elected while Labor was in office federally, all are showing signs of wear and tear.  We still have astonishingly sparse state polling from Western Australia since Colin Barnett polled a very poor personal result, but it wouldn't be at all surprising to see Labor in the lead there soon.  The NSW polling picture is still re-sorting itself after the shock loss of a Premier, and in Queensland the LNP have only a narrow lead (Queensland polling updates added) and are still struggling greatly to build their vote share to the level needed to make their unpopular Premier's own seat safe.

Newspoll Upfront Exclusion Rates Since 2002

Advance Summary

1.  Some observers think that the proportion of voters who are indicated by Newspoll as "uncommitted" or "refused" gives Labor a much greater chance in the upcoming federal election, because the Government may attract a late swing from undecided voters.

2. The view that there is generally a late swing to an incumbent Government is false.

3. The view that there is usually a late swing to the party that is trailing is true, but it is not clear whether this is because there is a genuine "narrowing" effect, or whether this is because the Coalition tends to outperform its polling and the Coalition has often been the trailing party.

4. It is possible (and logical) that there is a link between increases in the Newspoll exclusion rate and poor polling for Labor, suggesting that when the party is performing poorly more of its voters become "uncommitted".  However, the evidence on this is inconclusive.

5. While it is plausible that undecided voters will move back to the Government and improve its result by, say, two points, this is also something that may not happen at all.

6. The issue of uncommitted and refused rates is only relevant to the margin of an overwhelmingly likely Coalition win (assuming no Labor leadership change).  There is nothing to suggest it is capable of turning the election.
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The Gillard Bounce Barely Existed - What About The Spill Cliff?

Advance Summary

1. Kevin Rudd was in an improving and apparently election-winning polling position when deposed as Prime Minister in 2010.

2. Although it is considered that Labor received a bounce upon Rudd's replacement by Julia Gillard, a published aggregation of polls shows that that bounce was actually small (about a point) and short-lived.

3. The recent Labor leadership spill (called but not contested) was another event expected to produce dramatic changes (this time negative) in the party's polling but the results of polls conducted since the spill have been mixed.

4. Two polls (Essential, Galaxy) have measured no meaningful change in voting intentions, one (Morgan) has returned a significant but not massive change and one (Newspoll) has recorded a very large change.

5. The six-point swing in Newspoll is probably produced by a combination of the swing, the previous Newspoll having been below trend, and this one being above trend.  

6. The current Newspoll is in many ways among the worst Newspolls for the Government and best for the Opposition in this term.

7. Continuing support for Kevin Rudd from voters open to voting for Labor, despite the issue being apparently internally resolved, is likely to present a problem in building enthusiasm for the party's struggling re-election attempt.

Rogues, Recoveries and Irrelevant Portents

Admin note for Tas readers especially: this month I am running Not-A-Poll: Best Tasmanian Premier of the last 30 years.  Please vote (on right) if you have an opinion!  Readers may be surprised to see the Premier of one of Tasmania's least popular governments ever (ie the current one) challenging for the lead, as well as the big lead for the Labor premiers over the Liberal ones, but there are actually quite a few reasons why this might occur.  When the not-a-poll is finished I'll post some comments about the exercise and what it means. Of course, the results are not representative of the general population - and that's even assuming nobody stacks the thing!

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Advance Summary

1. Following a very turbulent week in federal politics, this week's polls on average show a small move to the Coalition.

2. The Newspoll showing a result of 56:44 to the Coalition is unrepresentative and probably exceeds the real figure by at least 2 points.

3. The Newspoll reading is probably not, however, a "rogue poll".

4. Over-calling of supposed "rogue polls" is a very common problem in the online poll-watching community.  This article provides many cautionary notes about use of the term "rogue" to describe a poll result.

5. The Government's polling position is now worse than that of the Keating Government in 1992-3 was at the equivalent or any later stage.

6. There are possibly still as many as six cases of governments recovering from worse polling positions than Labor's current position (with the time to go until the election factored in), however in three of those cases the data are very limited and at least one of the others is probably an invalid comparison.

7. Claimed evidence that either the declaration of the election date well in advance, or the chosen election date itself, are bad portents for Labor is not valid.

8. This article concludes with some discussion of contradictory voter attitudes to the economy, which may be posing a major problem for Labor at the moment.  

Silly Lilleys: Is Wayne Swan Losing His Seat? - Updated

Note: this is an older article that has been updated a number of times.  Everything below the line is not very relevant to the upcoming election following the change in Prime Minister, and with Swan now on the backbench, the answer for many will be "who cares?"

Update: 31 August: The great poetic irony that was supposed to occur if Kevin Rudd's resurrection as PM saved Swan's seat is again in danger, with the seat jittery based on seat margin polling, reports of internal polling and now a public poll.  A JWS Research robopoll reports a 53.8:46.2 result in this seat in favour of the Coalition, although it should be noted that seat polls have been delivering generally nasty stuff for Labor compared to national polling.  By no means a surefire indicator of defeat for Swan, but it is better not to poll such numbers than to poll them.

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Advance summary of original article:


1. An opinion poll has been reported as showing the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, headed for defeat in his seat of Lilley.

2. While this finding may yet prove correct, there are many reasons to treat the finding cautiously.

3. These reasons include the likely closeness of the poll once preferences are considered, the poll's small sample size, the non-naming of the key candidates, and the poll being commissioned by an interest group.

4. With all these reasons considered, the poll provides no clear insight into the likely fate of Swan's seat, which is already known to be marginal and at substantial risk.

5. Polls commissioned by interest groups should be treated with much caution, because even if they are impeccably designed, groups may decide whether or not to release such polls depending on whether they like the results.

March Update: (More details at bottom of article.) Some similar comments apply to a second Lilley poll in early March, except that the key candidates are named, the sample size is larger, and this is the second released poll now claiming this result, so the level of overall doubt about the findings is lower.

The primary figures provided would produce a closer 2PP result than claimed.  The second poll's finding that a change to Rudd would result in an increase of about eight points is unreliable as polls in which voters anticipate how they would respond to hypothetical situations are generally not to be trusted.  Nonetheless a return to Kevin Rudd is capable of making a big difference to the chances of this seat being held. 

June 3 Update: Things are looking dodgier for the Treasurer now, considering the dire state of the national 2PP and the recent Galaxy Queensland poll which showed a state swing large enough (but only just) for the Treasurer to lose if uniformly applied.  An "internal poll" has been reported as showing him on a primary of just 28%, however the usual caveats apply to internal polling that has not been released in full detail and that may be being released selectively or be methodically suspect.

June 11 Update: However we now (see here) see the first publicly released polling result (Fairfax-commissioned ReachTEL) in which the Treasurer has been in front (53:47), although the lead in this sample is within its margin of error based on a sample size of 600.  This does not necessarily mean Swan has turned anything around; it is quite possible that all the published polls are within the neighbourhood of an actual picture in which the fight for the seat is very close.  Full details of the poll are yet to be released.
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Morgan And The Myth Of Excessive Bouncing /The 1993 Analogy

Note added later: This article refers to a Morgan polling method that is no longer in use.

Advance Summary:

1. Face-to-face polls conducted by Roy Morgan Research are no more volatile than Newspoll.

2. In the case of both Morgan Face-to-Face polls and Newspoll, the level of bouncing from poll to poll is unsurprising, unsuspicious, and mostly explained by random variation.

3. Morgan Face-to-Face polls do however favour Labor, and this is especially true of their figures which allocate preferences according to results of the last election.  Morgan phone polls do not seem to favour one side or the other very much.

4. The current polling position and history of the Gillard Government is similar to that of both Keating governments.  Both became competitive about a year from the election, but continued to trail modestly for several months.

5. The first Keating government took the lead suddenly four and a half months from the election, while the second Keating government never managed to close down the Opposition's modest lead.

6. Recent articles by Peter Brent (Mumble) have repeatedly argued that a Gillard vs Abbott contest results in a certain or near-certain win for Abbott.

7. But an August 2012 article by the same writer sets criteria according to which the Keating polling situation was competitive throughout 1992, and then unfavourably compares Gillard's position then.

8. If the same criteria are applied, Labor under Gillard is competitive now.

Is the Silly Season Real?

(Admin note to readers: jumpbreaks poll closed - thanks to those who voted - outcome at bottom of post)

 Advance Summary

1. The view that a swing to the Coalition in the final Newspoll of 2012 was due to a general tendency for voters to "switch off" politics as Christmas approaches is disproven by historic evidence.

2. Comparisons between the December 2012 and December 2011 Newspolls on account of them having the same two-party preferred vote are simplistic and misleading because they fail to take into account surrounding trend data.

3. Although there has been a now clear and significant move to a substantial Coalition lead since early November, Labor's polling position in mid-December 2012 is not as bad as at the same time in 2011.

4. Leads similar to the Coalition's current lead have been held by many losing Oppositions five or six months prior to elections.

5. Whatever intuitive or subjective views different commentators hold, informed by data or otherwise, there is no known valid scientific basis for predicting the result of the next federal election at this stage, nor even for declaring a very strong favourite.  This applies no matter who the leaders are.

Thoughts on Forecasting and the US Pres Election

UPDATE 4 pm: Nothing has changed with only Virginia and Florida genuinely close and this is looking like it will be a triumph for state-polling-based models for the second election in a row.

UPDATE 2:40 pm: At present only Virginia and Florida counts are looking really close (as well as NC where Obama has done better than expected but still looks like falling just short).  Even if Romney wins all this he still falls short so there is no sign at present of a path for him to victory.

UPDATE 1:40 pm: Obama has in my view won Ohio based on similar methods to those used to model Australian counts in progress. 

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Apparently, some 8% of this site's readership so far is US-based, ten times more than any other non-Australian country to this stage.  That inspires me to say a few quick things about the massive logistic exercise unfolding over there at the moment and the debates about what will very soon happen.

For those who are not familiar with the US system, making sense of the endless history-laden data-drenched arguments about how to predict who will be President can be a daunting task.  Hopefully the following comments will be useful in informing people about some of the pitfalls when it comes to what to take seriously. 

Beware Overfitted Models

No we're not talking catwalk stuff here, but these things are certainly overdressed and each particular one will go out of fashion very quickly.  When you see someone claiming to have found a model that predicts a certain candidate will win based on a shopping list of items that have supposedly "predicted" (despite being made after) every presidential election since the year dot, run for the hills.  The chief offender I noticed this time was the Uni of Colorado study that claimed that Romney would win, but there were plenty of equally shoddy examples calling it for Obama.