Newspoll has released a state by state breakdown and one by demographics of its latest 50-50 poll. As William Bowe observes, these samples have a lower MoE than usual, given that the overall sample size has increased to 1700.
Here are the ALP 2PP figures, compared with the 2007 election results, the swing and the seat changes based on Antony Green’s election calculator.
NSW 53.7 49 -4.7% (8 seat ALP loss)
VIC 54.3 59 +4.7% (3 seat ALP gain)
QLD 50.4 46 -4.4% (8 seat ALP loss)
WA 46.7 46 – 0.7% (1 seat ALP loss)
SA 52.4 56 +3.6% (1 seat ALP gain)
Tasmania, the NT and the ACT unfortunately don’t exist for Newspoll.
Note that Green’s widget factors in the redistributed boundaries and assumes a uniform swing.
William Bowe on the demographics:
Age breakdowns offer the interesting finding that Labor has bounced back under Gillard in the 35-49 bracket, but if anything gone backwards among the young and old – or rather, remained stable on the primary vote while the Coalition has picked up a few points. The gender gap is four points on voting intention, seven on Gillard’s approval rating and the on preferred prime minister, and appears to have widened steadily through the year on Tony Abbott’s approval.
Update: [by Mark] Possum has plugged all the latest numbers into his election simulation.
They’d just hang on?
Just hang on, I think, yep.
I’m actually feeling a little more confident. Gillard is campaigning better and Abbott is starting to get some negative headlines.
Assuming that the status quo prevailed in Tassie and the territories, the poll figures translate into 75 seats for Labor, which would bring independents into play when it came to forming a government. If the Greens win Melbourne that could bring them into play as well.
I don’t think Labor will lose 8 seats in qld Paul.
Paul Walter: plugging the swings in the calculator gives us ALP 76 – Liberals 71 – Independents 3. Just over the line.
Just hang on?
People those figures above, ignoring Independents and the probable loss of Solomon in the NT and possible loss of Bass and Braddon in Tassie, give a net loss of 13 seats to the ALP from its current 83 seats which gives the COALition a majority of 5-10 seats.
Not good.
Not sure the prefs allocations are accurate enough to make a call, therefore have to stick with the encumbant.
If you are a coalition supporter – one would be very happy with these figures. For the ALP supporters – not so good news. I think it would be easier to try and contain the swing in NSW and QLD – rather than rely on a big swing / low seat gain in Vic and SA.
Gee that’s a big call to make, especially considering the Redistribution From Hell that just went on.
Sure Bennelong’s looking ugly for McKew but Hughes and Paterson can very conceivably be Labor wins. I can’t see eight seats in NSW going Liberal.
Also the margin in Robertson reflects the personal qualities of the appalling ex-member. Even I would have had trouble voting for Belinda Neal.
On these figures, Tony Abbott is Australia’s next PM.
Liam, it’s not really a call but an artefact of plugging the numbers into Antony Green’s calculator.
It assumes a uniform swing.
As I was saying before, I’d be very surprised if Labor loses 8 seats in Queensland.
Petrie and Longman are real contests, and I think Dickson looks better for Dutton than it did (nominal Labor). I don’t think Labor is in reach of taking Ryan any more, though Bowman is a bit of a chance. Herbert (another nominally Labor seat), I think will be go the LNP, and maybe Leichardt. Dawson is perhaps safe for the ALP, but Flynn looking shaky. Brisbane is still a bit of a sleeper.
So I can come up with eight seats, but there’s a massive marginal seat campaign going on, and I think at this stage my bet would be 3 or 4 LNP gains.
But, who knows? There are certainly a lot of seats in play in Queensland, and there may be another couple with safer margins – Blair would be one to watch, for instance.
And they would be especially delighted for their kids/grandkids and womenfolk, because, chances are, they would be among the first to feel the cold lash of Abbott’s WorkChoices MKII.
Onya, Lib voters. Be proud.
Indeed. And it might take redistributions into account but the candidates have been redistributed, too. There are lots of retiring MPs with large personal followings and huge marginal seat campaigns down here too.
@16 – yep, I think incumbency/retiring MPs, candidate quality, and local issues all factor into the mix.
For god’s sake, why does the NSW electorate not take its anger at the state government out on the state government, instead of the feds?
Maybe they are seeing a few too many parallels?
One of the factors in NSW is that they didn’t get their share on the stimulus infrastructure money because the planning hadn’t been done. I understand that in Sydney the last major road work was completed in 2005. When the infrastructure goodies were being handed out the got $91 million for planning a new project.
When I plug the poll figures into Antony Green’s calculater I get 76 Labor, 71 Coalition and 3 independents. If we then include the worst-case scenario for Tassis and the NT mentioned by Hannah’s Dad, we get 73 Labor, 74 Coalition and 3 independents.
Of course this doesn’t take into account the factors Mark and Liam have mentioned.
Is the worm in the rose tripodi?
Fine @3, try this little lot on for size! Cynicism and hypocrisy writ large.
He might soon be campaigning on the health benefits of smoking. He may even make it compulsory for primary school children to smoke a packet a day to pay for their education.
I envisage campaign t-shirts for the Smuggles Set endorsing the health benefits of tobacco use from an early age, preferably in-utero, with Smuggles’ Mining Council membership details and SerfChoices deal with big foreign owned mining companies on the back.
Should be a real vote winner.
The most surprising thing is that the Adelaide Advertiser is a Murdoch paper, although I have to admit that the “tiser hasn’t been anywhere near as rabid in its Smuggles support as the OO.
Hang on, I read the Newspoll as “NSW including ACT”.
Also interesting for this State is the column for “five capital cities” and “non-capitals” which shows that there hasn’t been nearly so much of a shift to the Coalition outside metro areas since 07. N.B. for Page, Eden-Monaro, Robertson, Cowper.
I wonder where they’re putting marginal outer-suburban seats like Macquarie and Macarthur?
“I don’t think Labor will lose 8 seats in qld Paul.”
Nor I. Nowhere near it.
N’
The Advertiser cartoon was its usual inept self tho.
Not even original, see some of the Guardians Rowson on Clegg.
“Dickson looks better for Dutton than it did (nominal Labor)”
Fiona McNamara is a strong Labor candidate. I think she can pull it off.
N’
Having a closer look at the NSW pendulum I can see Bennelong, Gilmore, Dobell and either Macarthur or Macquarie going to the Coalition. On the other hand Labor’s almost certain to pick up Greenway (ta redistribution), and I’d favour Hughes to go ALP as well. Four to five is a lot more likely than eight.
Liam @27
Robertson is gone in NSW. It would change hands on the votes of hospitality staff at iguanas alone.
Actually Jane, 22, is dead right.
The Advertiser has done a front page on a shabby deal involving the tories and the tobacco lobbyfor $5 million in advertising near the end of the campaign.
John Tennisplayer in Bennelong is running a campaign based almost entirely on hospitals, roads and public housing — his bumph looks like it was written for the next state election. Don’t forget that Howard’s overt & covert racism estranged him from the Asians in his electorate, and the new candidate (presumably) doesn’t have that baggage.
The sticky fingerprints of Mark Arbib et al. over the Gillard coup mean a lot more to NSW residents than they do to people in other states, and nothing good. Also, Tony Abbott is from Sydney so perhaps the locals in the swinging seats feel slightly more positive about him as a result.
Liam, you are probably right. If Hughes goes Liberal the ALP have very big problems. The Milperra (Labor) end is much more densely populated than the Menai end. I am not sure about Greenway; it covers a slab of McMansionland and doesn’t have *that* much of Blacktown in it if I’ve read the map properly.
Update: [by Mark] Possum has plugged all the latest numbers into his election simulation.
Mark, you do so cheer a day..
I’d be fairly sure about Greenway, Chookie.
a) The Labor voting areas aren’t big geographically, but they’ve got a lot of people living there
b) It doesn’t have much of the tory-voting Hills which is next door across the Old Windsor Road
c) They’ve lost Louise Markus who had a very strong personal following.
You can chalk it up now.
paul walters, the fact that it’s on the front page is amazing to me, but they do seem to have been far less unbalanced than the Australian. Not that you’d have to try hard to achieve that status.
I doubt that the OO will even report this, but if it gets picked up elsewhere, they might have to address it.
And I truly think this disgraceful deal will give a lot of voters pause for thought, considering the tobacco industry’s reputation.
I’m curious about McEwen in Victoria. The Libs only won by 31 votes last time and the sitting member is retiring. I have no idea what the locals thought of her. But, it’s a seat which covers most of the bushfire area and I wonder how that trauma may play out affect the vote.
Last week’s Wespoll had Labor holding Hasluck and gaining Canning so not sure where this loss of a seat in WA came from.
Where are the three new Victorian seats coming from? (Apologies if anyone has already asked this.)
Hell, I’m confident that Labor has a good shot in McEwen, and it can hold Deakin, Corrangemite and LaTrobe, but I reckon Melbourne is gone to the Greens.
My nominal best case scenario is a net gain of zero.
The better case scenario is only +1. Otherwise we’re much, much more likely to see a loss of 3, not a gain of 3.
Chookie @30:
Yep.
I’d rather the ALP any day compared to the 19C slash and burn Hobbesianism of the Libs under Abbott but the NSW Right has played the most significant role in trashing the party and alienating what my local candidate called “the base” the other day in conversation. Instead of providing schools, public transport and major infrastructure development in Sydney’s far west suburbs, which might have kept “the base” (by which he means the still extant remnants of the working class) onside, the brains trust in Sussex St has opted for “we’ll keep the foreigners out coz its all their fault” policy twist.
Except that it won’t wash because NSW citizens have simply had a gutfull of bullshit. I reckon they’ll vote negative, ie, to punish the ALP regardless of the dire consequences of the other mob.
In case anyone was wondering, the bit quoting me above which read “and the on preferred prime minister” should have read “and TEN on preferred prime minister” (my mistake).
I think Maxine will win Bennelong. I think there was a very significant John Howard personal vote which is now gone. JA is about as impressive a candidate as he is a tennis commentator (ie rubbish).
ALP won’t win Gilmore, Hughes, Robertson or Paterson. The libs are favourite in Macquarie too I think. Macarthur is a toss-up.
I favour Labor to hold Eden-Monaro, Page and Dobell. If they don’t win Greenway they can kiss government goodbye.
Basically the ALP are down to trying to hold on to enough key marginals (mostly in NSW or QLD) to hold on to Government. They may well do it, but it should never have got to this stage.
I gather Bob Hogg is Maxine’s unofficial campaign manager.
Alexander can counter with what, cast-offs from the offices of Hockey and O’Farrell?
I’m no psephologist but I’d be surprised if Maxine lost Bennelong to JA. I think the fact he had Hockey campaigning with him there and not Abbott might point to something.
I remember John Alexander in his tennis-playing days as competent, but not brilliant. However, he did have gorgeous legs…
As for his current impersonation – what do people think of his campaign flyer photo?
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/02/keanes-talking-points-this-election-is-now-the-liberals-to-lose/
Eeeeeew
Matt D @40, that “significant personal vote” for Howard wasn’t really personal, it was just because he was PM. He was a lousy local member, and not much chop at geeing-up the local troops — PMs don’t have time to do local electoral stuff much, but even making allowances for that he was bad. If Maxine has done good stuff locally, she can win it, but not otherwise; the demographics say the seat is Liberal, and she’s not Ted Mack.
Spotted my own MP, John Murphy, packing up after leafletting the railway station this morning. I’m in the older part of Reid; it was nice to see him putting in the effort (Murphy and a good wodge of his previous seat were redistributed to Reid, and he is probably safer now than before).
The impression I get from playing with the election calculator is that a hung parliament is a big possibility.
Chookie,
I agree totally with your analysis on Howard. He didn’t deserve the personal vote but I’m certain he had it. His absence will help Maxine.
We are obviously neighbours too, I’m now in Reid after many years in Lowe. Haven’t seen Murphy at the train station yet, but it will happen. The Libs were there yesterday but weren’t attracting a lot of attention that I could see.
Murphy is safe after the redistribution.