2022 Election Day: Newspoll Says Labor Really Ought To Win This Time

2PP Aggregate: 53.2 to Labor (-0.3 since Wednesday) (not a prediction)
(Weighted for time only, no house effects or quality weightings)

Cross-poll average of polls released in last week: 52.8 to Labor 
If polls are right (they may not be), Labor should win outright, with a median 82-83 seats
Historically, Labor has underperformed slightly on average when it leads in final week polling

We've finally reached the end, and after seeing yet another nonsense article from Nine claiming that "If current polling is replicated at the federal election, a hung parliament is the most likely outcome" the end cannot come soon enough.  If there is a hung parliament, then it will be because the polls weren't replicated (at least not on primary votes for those at 51-49.)  But the end is only the start of weeks of post-counting and projection fun ahead.

The final Newspoll has arrived and it has Labor with a 53-47 lead from primaries of Coalition 35 Labor 36 Greens 12 One Nation 5 UAP 3 IND/others 9.  In the past Newspoll has sometimes rounded final poll 2PPs unusually (to halves of a point in 2013 and 2019 and even to tenths in 2010) and I don't know whether the 2PP was rounded to the nearest point or the nearest half-point.  However it matters little.  Scott Morrison is on a poor but not terrible -13 net satisfaction (41-54) and Anthony Albanese picks up six points to -5 (41-46).  For the first time ever in a final Newspoll, the two leaders are tied on the skewed Better Prime Minister indicator, 42-42.  This puts Albanese above John Howard, who trailed 45-40 when he won heavily in 1996.  

Two-Party Swing Is A Fine Predictor Of Seat Share Changes (And No It Isn't Getting Worse)

I am hoping to have a Senate prospects piece up by the end of tomorrow but before that I think I need to address something I am hearing too much of at this election.  I refer to trendy talk about federal elections being seat-by-seat battles, the election being 151 separate contests, and the idea that even a massive 2PP win (should Labor be so lucky) might seriously not result in a Labor majority.  We hear this stuff at every federal election but this time around the commentariat seems especially awash with it.  This piece is pretty mathsy (let's say 3/5 on the Wonk Factor scale) but it's necessary to crunch a few numbers to show what a load of nonsense we are hearing.  

The state of play

Firstly a brief word about polling since last week's roundup.  Two polls have been released, a Newspoll with Labor 53-47 ahead (L-NP 36 ALP 37 Green 10 ON 4 UAP 3 others 10) and a Morgan with Labor 57-43 ahead by Morgan's respondent preferences (L-NP 32.5 ALP 36 Green 12.5 ON 5 UAP 1.5 IND 8.5 others 4) .  However, if last-election preferences are used the Morgan only comes out at 55.4 to Labor, so Morgan's headline 2PP not changing can be ignored.  (The expected value for the Newspoll off the published primaries is 52.8, but Newspoll would have a more accurate number based on rounding).  By last-election preferences the average of the most recent polls from each major pollster is now 54.2 to Labor.  There is a reasonably strong case based on the history of Australian polling generally that this is probably skewing to Labor a little bit and the real underlying voting intention is more likely somewhere in the 53s, but always beware of Nate's 1st Rule.  In any case, history suggests that whatever lead Labor now has will probably (but not necessarily) reduce by the time of the final result.  

The 2022 Pendulum Only Slightly Favours The Coalition

 With redistributions in Victoria and Western Australia complete, the AEC has gazetted new boundaries.  Antony Green has released an estimated pendulum for the next election, now looking most likely to be held in 2022 rather than 2021.  There were some slight differences between Antony's initial estimates and those of William Bowe and Ben Raue, and I expect many of these would still apply to the final version.  Furthermore the AEC will release its own estimates later.  But pending the AEC estimates I thought I would use Antony's estimates as a starting point for a look at the 2022 pendulum and how much it helps or harms each side based on what we know so far about candidates.  This article is fairly mathsy and has been rated 3/5 on the Wonk Factor scale.  

There are three questions I am most interested in here:

1. All else being equal, what national two-party preferred (2PP) vote does the Coalition need for a better than even chance of a majority?

2. All else being equal, what 2PP vote does each side need for a better than even chance of winning more seats than the other?

3. All else being equal, what 2PP vote does Labor need for a better than even chance of a majority?

The Queensland Poll Drought Is Finally Over

Note added 16 Oct: The Newspoll just out is virtually identical to the YouGov poll below so I have nothing to add to this article on its behalf, save that it is not just one poll saying this now, but two by the same company, and with much less time remaining.  It should be noted though that the Greens primary is down 1% on the YouGov poll, which makes the 52-48 2PP off those primaries rather than 51-49 seem more tenuous, especially with the information that the UAP is polling something in the Others tray.  

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YouGov 2PP 52-48 to Labor

Projected seat result if this poll is accurate: ALP win, but majority status touch and go (approx ALP 48-9 LNP 37 KAP 3 Green 2-3 ON 1 Ind 1 - almost no net change from 2017)

Over three months since the last, and less than four weeks til polls close, we finally have another public voting intention poll for the 2020 Queensland election.  Finally, for a week at least, I will be able to scan social media in search of polling data in some peace without the Violent Femmes singing "WHY CAN'T I GET JUST ONE POLL?" or the Angels responding "AM I EVER GONNA SEE A POLL AGAIN?" in my head.  The release of a rather large statewide YouGov sample that has Labor leading 52-48 finally gives me something to apply a statewide poll model to so I can talk about modelling and this election.  Though in comparison to 2017, there's really nowhere near as much to say.  

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.

Final Poll And Campaign Roundup: Was It Really So Bad Now?

2PP aggregate smoothed tracking graph. Probably final

EXPECTED FINAL 2PP Aggregate: 50.8 to Coalition
CAUTION: Final polls appear herded
Seat Projection if this is the actual 2PP: Probable Coalition majority win (approx 79-65-6)
Subjective prediction 78-65-7 (plus or minus lots!)
NXT seat outcome in SA is unpredictable - could win none or lots

Seat Betting Watch: The Last Few Days

I'll start a final poll roundup tonight with the release of Ipsos, and try to make a few coherent general comments about the state of the campaign then.  This separate piece continues my monitoring of the seat betting markets, because the predictiveness of betting markets is frequently a matter of discussion.  Seat betting markets performed indifferently at the 2013 election and it will be interesting to see if they do better this time around.  This election lacks the major challenge of the 2013 poll (a massive difference between national polling and seat polling) but there are new problems to make things challenging for people betting on the outcomes.  These include the large number of unpredictable minor-party challenges (especially in South Australia) and also the unclear impact of the Xenophon Team on the preference situation.

I had some interesting insight into the shallowness of some of the specialty betting markets (2PP, clean sweeps and so on) when someone contacted me about some of the odds and then threw money at them, resulting in substantial and rapid changes.  It would be interesting to have some information about how many people are actually betting on some of these markets; in some cases it is probably not very many.

 This is how things line up on the seat betting markets at present.  A seat is considered close if both parties are at $3 or less on any market:

Loss (Coalition to Labor): Barton*, Paterson*
Close Loss (Coalition to Labor): Solomon, Dobell*,  Eden-Monaro,  Macarthur,  Capricornia, Burt, Petrie, Page, Lyons
Close Loss (Coalition to NXT): Mayo
Loss (PUP to Coalition): Fairfax
Tied: Cowan (split markets)

ALP Close Holds: Batman (vs Grn), Greenway, Chisholm
Coalition Close Holds: Banks,  Gilmore, Macquarie, Cowper (vs IND), Brisbane, Flynn, Forde, Grey (vs NXT), Barker (vs NXT),  Hindmarsh, Braddon, Bass, Deakin, Dunkley, Hasluck, Swan

In the last week Lyons has moved into the Labor pile following a 45:55 ReachTEL (though on the public evidence I think Labor are still too short here).  NXT has become the favourite in Mayo and Cowan has moved to the fence.  Mark the Ballot has great detailed tracking of the Sportsbet odds; I can add that Batman has briefly been tied during the last week but hasn't stayed there for long.

Here's the colour-coded tracker:

Key to colours:

Dark blue - Coalition favoured in all markets
Light blue - Coalition favoured in some markets, tied in others
Grey - seat tied, or different favourites in different markets
Pink - Labor favoured in some markets, tied in others
Red - Labor favoured in all markets
Dark green - Green favoured in all markets
Orange - NXT favoured in all markets

While the Coalition has lost one net seat in which it is favourite, it has regained ground on my "close seat adjusted" total.  Mark the Ballot's graph of the sum of seat probabilities as perceived by the market (with longshots chopped out) shows Labor shedding about five seats over the past few weeks.  All this is consistent with the markets gradually adjusting to a small shift in national polls that began in the second week of June.

The various totals markets are expecting about the same thing.  The William Hill banded seat market expects 79 seats with 76-80 the shortest range.  The William Hill exact seat market expects 77.6 seats on average with 79-80 seats as joint favourites at $12.  Oddly the Centrebet exact seat market has 77 seats favourite at just $3.50 (and if you think Labor will win outright and can get the margin right, that's good for at least $100) - the average there comes to 78.3.  The Sportsbet 2PP market has finally fallen into line with other markets with 50-51 now the favourite range.

At the last election we saw a lot of media reporting of Monte Carlo models where people ran, say, 10000 runs of the seat-betting probabilities in the different seats and on that basis concluded that Labor had no chance of winning majority government. The same exercise gives the same result this time. I haven't seen so much of that this time around but I should point out that while such exercises are fun they provide no useful information about what markets are thinking, or indeed about anything at all.

The reason is that they depend on the assumption that seat probabilities are independent, so that, for instance, the Coalition winning Lindsay doesn't change the Coalition's chance of winning Banks.  But in reality if you know the Coalition wins a given seat, this makes it more likely that its national 2PP is good, and hence increases the chance of it winning others.  If there is a national swing or a national polling error then this changes the correct odds in almost every seat, and punters know there is a chance of this.  Such models don't even show that the chance of one side winning is such-and-such if there isn't a national swing in the last few days (or a polling error), because if we knew we had the 2PP right we could be far more confident about more seats.  The way to determine what markets "think" the seat tally will be, and with what spread of possible outcomes, is to look at markets that are directly about seat tallies.

Seat Poll Model

My seat poll model (limited to objective information as it is, but with some subjective calls regarding weightings) currently largely agrees with the betting markets - it expects about 78 Coalition seat wins based on current national polling.  If the national polling changes then so does the seat estimate.  It has Labor favourites in the following Coalition seats: Barton, Paterson, Dobell, Petrie, Capricornia, Lyons, Solomon, Cowan (which it thinks is extremely shaky, and so do the markets and so do I) and Burt.  It disagrees mildly with the markets about Macarthur (where it has a 53% Coalition retain chance assuming no further 2PP change) and Eden-Monaro and Page (neither of which have had a neutral seat poll; if I add commissioned seat polls then both flip.)  Although it has the Coalition favourite in 83 seats, I am currently overriding Mayo based on seat-polls combined with my NXT modelling attempts.  Of the rest it thinks there are enough shaky Coalition seats for the Coalition to be expected to lose about five of the seats in which it is favourite, and to pick up about one seat from Labor.  However the shortage of data about ALP seats is so severe that the model cannot single out any specific seat with a very high chance of going against the flow.  It just says it will probably happen somewhere.

The problem with the national polling my model is based on is that yet again it is all several days old.  If things have changed in the final week we will not get a hint until tonight, and will then need more polls to confirm, by which time it will all be over!

Updates or extra detail, especially re notable betting movements (if any) will be added to this site tomorrow and tomorrow night.  If you see a seat "flip" in betting, feel free to let me know.

Updates:

Split Market In Batman: As of 4 pm Friday Bhathal (Green) has become favourite in Batman on at least one market but not yet all of them.  Also the seat of Melbourne Ports is tightening with the Liberals in to $4.50 from $7 a few days ago.  (The problem in Melbourne Ports is that Michael Danby is being targeted by the Greens, who could push him into third, at which point they might struggle to get enough preferences given Danby's anti-Green stance.)

Libs Favourite In Cowan: Betting markets now favour Liberal Luke Simpkins in Cowan, making the Coalition favourite in 80 seats.

Murray: I've pretty much ignored this intra-Coalition contest but the Nationals have hit the lead.

Cowper Flips: As noted in comments, Cowper has flipped and Rob Oakeshott is favourite at $1.75 Sportsbet $1.65 Crownbet while William Hill have pulled the market on it.  That means the current list of seat favourites has Coalition 79 Labor 64 and Others 7.

Final (2am election day):

Loss (Coalition to Labor): Barton*, Paterson*, Dobell, Solomon
Close Loss (Coalition to Labor): Eden-Monaro,  Macarthur,  Capricornia, Burt, Petrie, Page, Lyons
Close Loss (Coalition to NXT): Mayo
Close Loss (Coalition to IND): Cowper
Loss (PUP to Coalition): Fairfax
Tied (ALP vs Green): Batman (split markets)

ALP Close Holds:  Greenway, Chisholm
Coalition Close Holds: Robertson, Gilmore, Macquarie, Brisbane,  Grey (vs NXT), Barker (vs NXT),  Hindmarsh, Braddon, Cowan

Key to colours:

Dark blue - Coalition favoured in all markets
Light blue - Coalition favoured in some markets, tied in others
Grey - seat tied, or different favourites in different markets
Pink - Labor favoured in some markets, tied in others
Red - Labor favoured in all markets
Dark green - Green favoured in all markets
Orange - NXT favoured in all markets
Purple - Ind favoured in all markets

Total of favourites: Coalition 79 Labor 64.5 Green 1.5 Ind 3 NXT 1 KAP 1 
Close seat adjusted: Coalition 79.6 Labor 63.6 Green 1.5 Ind 2.7 NXT 1.6 KAP 1

Horse-Race Overview And Betting Roundup: Are Labor Too Long?

(Note: This post was actually released 23 June, not 18 June as for some strange reason stated!)

It's just about time to rule a line under the rolling poll roundup that I ran through the last several days and write something new about the overall horse-race picture.  A new rolling roundup will be started when there is a new national poll (most likely ReachTEL on Friday night).

The national polling data that we have on this election at the moment all dates from Sunday or earlier.  Only Newspoll is even dominated by data from last weekend.  The two-party picture is persistently close, and the Coalition's advantage in seat projections is not massive, but betting markets offer headline odds that imply it's almost a done deal.  Many people have suggested to me over the last few weeks that Labor are way too long, and that odds of $3 or $4 might be understandable, but surely not $6 and upwards as has been seen at times.

My own polling aggregate (which, I should restate, describes the state of play at a given time - it is not by itself a prediction) has found the Coalition to be in a winning position at all times since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister.  The Coalition has sometimes slipped below 50% two-party-preferred, but has never yet fallen below 76 seats on my projection of what would happen in an election "held now" at the time.  However, it hasn't had a big lead for a long time.