Mulgrave – Victoria 2022

The idea of Aidan McLindon as a weapon of any sort is just laughable. The iFoods guy will get more traction though, Dictator Dan treated him horribly

Liberal candidate probably the hot favourite to get disendorsed before election day.

Been forced by Liberal HQ to issue a formal apology this morning for calling for Daniel Andrews to be brought to justice for murder.

What a revolting comment.

I note that he also pledged that the Liberals, if elected, would “get rid of all the dodgy policies Daniel Andrews pushed through”. I assume by that he means the rental reforms, safe zones around abortion clinics, banning gay conversion therapy, etc?

If he’s just gone rogue with that statement, contradicting the Liberals’ official line that they won’t reverse any of that, I imagine Liberal HQ would be pretty unhappy that he’s undermining their messaging. Or perhaps that should be a warning about what the Liberals, who have clearly been taken over by the religious right, would actually do if elected.

Today, at his “High Noon @ Noble” Facebook Livestream, Freedom Party of Victoria candidate and deputy leader Aiden McLindon revealed internal polling from his party for the seat of Mulgrave. The numbers are as follows:

Labor: 40% (down 16.73% since 2018)
Liberal: 30% (down 2.89%)
Greens: 10% (up 3.78%)
Ian Cook (Ind): 11.5% (up 11.5%)
Freedom Party of Victoria: 8.5% (up 8.5%)

McLindon revealed that their projected 2PP was 50-50. Given the Greens generally have better preference flows to Labor than minor right-wing parties do to the Liberals, I calculated the 2PP using these numbers to be roughly 53.65. No methodology, survey size, or fieldwork dates were provided.

It sounds like McLindon just did a basic Labor + Greens vs Everything Else.

I agree with you though. Looks more like around 53-47 to me but who knows how accurate that polling is. Internal polling often has very leading questions and is unreliable.

Agree Trent, preferences will never flow 100% from a minor party to a major one. The highest you can get is 85-90% which would be intra-Coalition preferences or 75-80 which is the typical flow rate for a strong minor party like Greens.

Otherwise for independents or unknown minor parties the flow rate is typically only 60-70% at best, sometimes only 50%.

Doesn’t look like a particularly accurate opinion poll especially if the methodology and sample size hasn’t been revealed.

The leading questions are especially evident in most polls that Kos Samaras and RedBridge Group do.

I actually took a screenshot of the polling he did for Benambra because the questioning was incredibly leading. It was basically campaigning for Jacqui Hawkins, the Labor-aligned “independent”.

Agree Mark.

The questions for Redbridge’s “teal” polls have generally started with an impartial voting intention question, and had relatively low independent support… Then that is followed by a long spiel about how amazing Monique Ryan is, then asks if someone like her was running, how would you vote? Whadya know, independent vote increases from 10-15% to 20-25% after that leading question, and that’s what gets reported as the IND support in that seat…

Lets say Andrews does lose his seat. And Labor is returned. Who is premier? If Andrews doesn’t get a vacated seat by one of his MP’s he will be forced to retire within 90 days or so because I believe the law says you need a seat within a certain time.

Who would be the top contenders? His deputy is retiring in Monbulk so he is out. Jill is retiring as well so she is out. So who would be the favourite?

@Daniel T In that scenario, I’d say Jacinta Allan the current deputy premier is the most likely option.

I heard just before the federal election (on AM radio) that pollsters can ironically sway votes and they mentioned the example of helping teal independents:
1. Boost their own profile (to get their names out).
2. Do push polling.
3. Create a bandwagon effect so people will vote for a “perceived” popular candidate.

@ Trent

Completely agree. He then classed the polling numbers after the marketing spiel as the “informed” vote.

The sheer arrogance of that is just hilarious to me. There is absolutely no way that it represents true voting intentions.

Have just seen the first Labor signs in Mulgrave doing the rounds on social media.

They don’t have Dan’s face on them. The standard for all other candidates and parties is for the candidate to have their face on the sign.

Yet another reason why I refuse to believe that Andrews is as popular as polling suggests.

None of the polling suggests he is particularly popular though, they mostly suggest Labor are preferred over the Coalition despite him, not because of him, and that Guy is even less popular.

But his approval and preferred premier ratings are much lower than a couple of years ago.

And yet today’s Resolve poll still shows that Andrews is ahead of Guy 49-29 as preferred Premier. After 8 years in the job I don’t think he’d be too worried about that.

Today’s Resolve poll conducted between 20-24 October that showed Labor leading 59-41 is yet another one that is consistent with all the others. As Kevin Bonham’s commentary about it said – it’s not a huge sample size, but is yet another consistent one that adds to all the other lopsided polls showing the same thing.

The reality is that over recent months when you put all the polls together, you get a very large sample size taken by a range of different pollsters with different polling methods and 2PP methodologies, and they’re all extremely consistent in showing the exact same result:
* Liberals between 26-31%
* Labor between 37-42%
* High independent / Greens vote
* Labor 2PP between 56-60%
* Andrews’ approval & Preferred Premier around the 45-50% (around -15% from his peak)
* Guy’s approval & Preferred Premier much lower, and Andrews with at least a +20 lead on each

When there hasn’t been a single exception to that across 5 different pollsters who all have different methodologies, it’s been consistent for months now showing no movement, and is also consistent with leaked internal polling that has the Liberals struggling to crack 30%, it’s at the point where you simply can’t just dismiss the polling altogether.

I don’t believe that at any time in history, polls have been anywhere near as wrong as they would have to be this time for Labor to not win this election.

Worth pointing this out – the polls ahead of the 2018 state election significantly underestimated Labor. In fact, the polling error in the 2018 state election was more egregious than that in the 2019 federal election:
– In the state election, the polls predicted “narrow Labor victory” when the result was “Labor landslide”.
– In the federal election, the polls predicted “narrow Labor victory” when the result was “narrow Coalition victory”.

People only complained more about the federal election polling because the error resulted in incorrectly predicting who would form government, when really, the error in the 2PP (you know, the thing that polls are actually trying to estimate) was much further off in the state election.

But yes, a Coalition victory when the polls are predicting 59-41 would be the most spectacular failure in polling that has ever been seen. It would be even more spectacular considering (as I have repeatedly mentioned in various threads) that the Liberals could gain on the 2PP but end up making a net loss of seats. That being said, we are still a month away from election day – there’s still time for things to change.

To reconcile what @Trent has said with what @Mark has said – Andrews might not be popular, but he is less unpopular (excuse the double negative) than Guy, and that’s what the polling is reflecting.

@Nicholas, and just to build on that comparison between 2018 & 2019 polls even further, both shared a similarily in that they underestimated the incumbent, not the opposition.

Similarly, even in the 2022 federal election where the polls were generally pretty accurate, the final result (52-48 ALP) still reflected that the incumbent Liberal government gained rather than lost ground during the campaign, or that the polls slightly underestimated them.

So recent history would suggest that if there was any movement during the campaign, or if the polls were underestimating anybody, it’s more likely to be the incumbent than the opposition.

On the topic of Dan Andrews’ popularity, a couple of years ago polls showed that Dan was more popular than Labor; for the last 18 months or so the polls have shown that Dan’s personal support is lower than Labor’s.

So I don’t think it’s accurate to say that polls are suggesting Dan Andrews is popular, and point to that as a reason to discredit the polling. If anything the polls are supporting the idea that Dan’s personal popularity has declined; but the Liberal brand is even less popular.

Trent, I think in the days leading up to the 2022 Federal Election, Scott Morrison did gain ground possibly due to his announcement on his policy in allowing first home buyers to use their super to buy a house but the problem was it was already too late and the policy was too rushed given it may actually have negative consequences to the super funds

@Marh Was that really a popular policy? It plunged my opinion of the Coalition to an all-time low. I viewed it as one of the most twisted and sociopathic policies I have ever seen a major party put forward.

I don’t think that policy did much, I just think incumbents have an advantage during an election campaign, so the polls are more likely to narrow if an incumbent is trailing or widen if they’re leading.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the “first home buyers dipping into their mortgage” policy shifted anything in Morrison’s favour.

It was just a thought bubble as a favour to Tim Wilson and other Liberal members who don’t believe in super in the first place, that got a bit of a run in the Lib-friendly media. No polling suggested it helped them win any votes.

Regards 2018 Vic polling – it was actually somewhat variable, some expected a narrow win, but others did accurately predict a comfortable Labor win that ultimately occurred, albeit maybe not to the extent. But that’s somewhat irrelevant now, as after the polling failure of the 2019 federal election pollsters have attempted to change their methodology.

About the polling for the federal election in 2022, the pollsters overestimated Labor’s 2PP and primary vote, despite the claims they had fixed up the methodology. I was shocked that Labor’s primary vote went backwards on election night. Opinion polls don’t predict the seat count very well. They don’t predict where the swings will be, especially where there’s a Green or independent who’s competitive.

I expect that at this state election, there’ll be seats flipping between the major parties, unlike at past elections where seats all went in one direction. There’ll also a huge vote for the Greens and non-majors. How they preference will affect the results in knife-edge seats. I predict the Greens will pick up one seat and independents could pick up one or two.

The polls for the 2022 federal election predicted Labor 53-47, which was one percentage point off the actual result.

Nicholas,

The problem is that in Victoria, there hasn’t been quality polling. Roy Morgan, who has done the vast majority of polls this cycle, overestimated Labor by 10% in Victoria back in May.

Really perplexed as to why we haven’t had decent polling this election.

The latest Newspoll (albeit outdated now, we need another one) was 56-44 to Labor.

The latest Resolve Strategic which is only a week old was 59-41 to Labor and their federal polling was generally very accurate.

Agree that Roy Morgan is the least accurate, however poll after poll after poll has been very consistent from them whereas that wasn’t the case with their federal polling which jumped around a lot.

Of course all polling needs to be taken with caution, but I have to admire your optimism as a Liberal voter if you truly believe that around 15 polls across 5 different pollsters, using a range of different polling methods, all of which have had extremely consistent results, are all out by double digits which is what it would require for the Liberals to pick up the 19 seats required to win!

For the record I too think the polls are a bit inflated but I still expect Labor’s 2PP to be at least 55%. Nowhere near the 49% they would likely need to be reduced to for the Liberals to form even a minority government.

I was surveyed by YouGov today for the Victorian election. How long after fieldwork do Newspoll normally release results?

Ooh interesting! Another Newspoll coming.

Pretty quickly I think. Poll Bludger posted the results of a federal Newspoll conducted “Thursday to Sunday” on Sunday night so it’s a quick turnaround.

If they’re conducting one Monday to Thursday it might be for Friday’s Herald Sun or something.

Cannot believe I’m writing this… a Melbourne business man is paying the deposit of 50+ independents to run in Mulgrave in an attempt to unseat the Premier. If this happens this would surely be the biggest lower house ballot paper ever? The only thing I think this will do is see informal voting go through the roof.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/state-election/andrew-king-aiming-to-attract-50-candidates-to-run-against-the-premier-before-nominations-close-on-november-11/news-story/6c1d2f9b69329583086f2c5ea7748d26

Is this guy aware that Victoria has OPV?! Wouldn’t this *favour* Andrews?!

@nicholas
https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/voting/how-voting-works/preferential-voting

> Full preferential voting is used in Lower House and local council elections.

Oh bugger, I thought it was optional in Victoria. Too many things to remember about how the voting system varies across the states. >.<

To attempt to get 50 candidates on the ballot in order to drive up the informal vote seems undemocratic, I don’t see it happening. There must be some law against this. What is the most candidates that have been on a lower house ballot?

That would only help Dan anyway. What an idiot this guy is.

50 independents would do nothing but split the IND vote, not take any extra votes away from Dan, and in doing so increase the chance of not only informals but preference leakage, making it harder for an IND to make the final count.

If somebody intended to vote for Dan anyway then whether there are 2 or 50 independents won’t change that. I don’t see what he’s trying to achieve.

@adam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Bradfield_by-election

Bradfield by-election of 2009, after retirement of Brendan Nelson; 22 candidates.

Adam, I believe it was 16 in Frankston 2014 for Victoria. In the case of Federal elections, I think 22 candidates ran in the 2009 Bradfield by-election.

@Ham, bankrolling 50 independent candidates could backfire if Dan is at the top of the ballot or above the Liberals or strongest independents. In the long term, Labor and maybe together with the Greens would legislate to make it harder for independents and the micro-parties to get nominated. VEC could catch them in their tracks as their nominations may be deemed fraudulant.

Howard X Lee, the infamous Kim Jong Un impersonator is running here as an independent. Though there’s no way he will win, he is honestly one of the least worst independent options in the seat.

Dans first on the ballot, get ready for the “its rigged” meltdowns

It seems Andrew King’s plan to flood the ballot with independents has not materialised. There are 11 candidates.

I thought I saw it was a field of 14 when released today?

Andrew King has put *himself* on the ballot, and drawn #2 behind Dan Andrews.

The VEC released a document earlier in the day that listed 11, I see that’s now been updated to 14.

If Howard X is “Kim Jong Un” on the ballot. He could get 2-3% of the vote as a joke-protest vote, however it will have no influence on the outcome of the seat.

50 inds would make it more difficult to vote formal but
Andrews would win anyway
What of the poor polling staff

Howard X, the Kim Jong-Un impersonator, should direct his preferences to the “freedom” candidates. That would be funny! He did say he’d put Dan Andrews last on his HTV card.

First of all, from what I’ve seen, the ground game from andrews is nonexistent, there are quite a few Cook and McLindon corflutes in an area that put up a few Claire O’Neill posters in may. The doorknocking campaign is clearly making an impression in that respect, though I don’t really rate the corflute wars as a metric of possible success.

At early voting, I saw a definite plurality of non-andrews HTVs, though these may not be indicative as this was the first day of prepolling and only the most eager beavers were there.

Thirdly, to look now at margins and the federal election. Andrews is on a redistributed 15% margin, which has proven capable of falling to 5% at times. While it was not as dire as inner-western Melbourne, there was not a total embracing of Labor here in may. Though he is sitting on a strong margin after redistribution and the small benefit of the first spot on the ballot, Andrews sure is campaigning like this seat is agiven, and that is not the vibe I am getting. He is presumably relying on the quiet Australians.

If Andrews loses his seat but Labor retains government by the margins that most people are expecting, that really would be something…