This is a quick post to let you know that my profiles of the three Tasmanian upper house contests have now been added to my guide to the 2021 Tasmanian state election.
The three seats are Derwent to the north-west of Hobart, Windermere to the north-east of Launceston, and Mersey which covers Devonport.
The incumbent Labor MLC is running for re-election in Derwent and a centre-left independent MLC is running for re-election in Mersey (and is yet to be opposed by any other candidate).
(EDIT: shortly after posting this blog post, nominations closed and Mike Gaffney was elected unopposed in Mersey.)
Conservative independent Ivan Dean is retiring in Windermere. That seat has been competitive in the past.
I would expect this race would be heavily influenced by the elections being held simultaneously with the House of Assembly election. Legislative Council candidates (independents and partisan candidates) are limited in their spending in such a way that their campaign will be massively overshadowed by the lower house race.
This comes as there has been a gradual trend of independents being replaced by Labor and Liberal members, one which saw independents cease to hold a majority of seats after the 2020 elections. I will return to that topic in a future blog post after I have posted my Upper Hunter profile at some point on the weekend.
This map shows the three contests, and you can click on each seat to view the profile:
