ALP 22.3%
Incumbent MP
Lizzie Blandthorn, since 2014.
Geography
Northern Melbourne. Pascoe Vale covers central parts of the City of Moreland, specifically the suburbs of Coburg, Coburg North, Pascoe Vale and Pascoe Vale South.
Redistribution
Pascoe Vale shifted south, losing Glenroy, Hadfield and Oak Park to Broadmeadows and gaining the remainder of Coburg and part of Brunswick West from Brunswick. These changes increased the Labor margin from 18.3% to 22.3%.
Pascoe Vale has existed in two incarnations, first for a single term in the 1950s and then again since 1985. In that time it has always been held by the ALP.
The original Pascoe Vale was created for the 1955 election, when it was won by the ALP’s Arthur Drakeford. He had previously held the seat of Essendon for one term in the 1940s. The seat was abolished after only one term.
Pascoe Vale was recreated in 1985, and was won by the ALP’s Cyril Edwards. He had previously been Member for Moonee Ponds and Ascot Vale, serving continuously from 1967 until his retirement at the 1988 election.
In 1988 Pascoe Vale was won by Deputy Mayor of Coburg, Kelvin Thomson. He served as Member for Pascoe Vale until he resigned in March 1996 to contest the federal seat of Wills. The federal election was held only four weeks before the Victorian state election, so no by-election was held. Thomson has served as Member for Wills ever since, and served as a shadow minister prior to the ALP winning government in 2007.
Pascoe Vale was won at the 1996 state election by Christine Campbell. Campbell served as a minister from 1999 to 2010, and held the seat until her retirement in 2014.
Labor’s Lizzie Blandthorn won Pascoe Vale in 2014, and she was re-elected in 2018.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Lizzie Blandthorn is running for the Western Metropolitan region of the Legislative Council.
- Madaleine Hah (Victorian Socialists)
- Tom Wright (Liberal)
- Richard Cimbaro (Family First)
- Elizabeth Adams (Animal Justice)
- Margee Glover (Reason)
- Sue Bolton (Independent)
- Anthony Cianflone (Labor)
- Angelica Panopoulos (Greens)
Assessment
Pascoe Vale has a long history as a safe Labor seat. It’s very likely the seat will stay in Labor hands in 2022, but there is a significant share of the vote that was cast either for independents or the Greens in 2018, and the shift to the south pushed the Greens into second place.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Lizzie Blandthorn | Labor | 15,904 | 37.7 | -10.0 | 38.2 |
| Phil Jackson | Greens | 5,451 | 12.9 | -3.3 | 20.7 |
| Oscar Yildiz | Independent | 9,908 | 23.5 | +23.5 | 16.3 |
| Genevieve Hamilton | Liberal | 4,812 | 11.4 | -15.2 | 11.5 |
| John Kavanagh | Independent | 3,242 | 7.7 | +7.7 | 4.2 |
| Gerry Beaton | Socialists | 1,277 | 3.0 | -0.2 | 2.4 |
| Graeme Linsell | Animal Justice | 839 | 2.0 | +2.0 | 2.1 |
| Francesco Timpano | Independent | 707 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.1 |
| Others | 3.6 | ||||
| Informal | 3,220 | 7.1 | +0.7 |
2018 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Lizzie Blandthorn | Labor | 24,684 | 58.6 | -8.2 | 59.1 |
| Oscar Yildiz | Independent | 17,456 | 41.4 | +41.4 | 40.9 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Lizzie Blandthorn | Labor | 28,790 | 68.3 | +1.6 | 72.3 |
| Genevieve Hamilton | Liberal | 13,350 | 31.7 | -1.6 | 27.7 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: east, north-west and south-west.
Labor won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote (against the independent in the north and the Greens in the south) in all three areas, ranging from 57.4% in the north-west to 62.8% in the south-west.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 11.8% in the north-west to 31.1% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 11.8 | 57.4 | 7,272 | 18.7 |
| South-West | 22.3 | 62.8 | 5,949 | 15.3 |
| East | 31.1 | 62.0 | 5,382 | 13.8 |
| Pre-poll | 20.0 | 56.2 | 14,804 | 38.0 |
| Other votes | 22.4 | 62.2 | 5,522 | 14.2 |
Election results in Pascoe Vale at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, independent candidates, the Greens and the Liberal Party.
The current vote tampering scandal is creating a bad look for Labor in this neck for the woods. Demographic change favours the Greens along with the boundary changes. With the anticipated move of Blandthorn to the Upper House, this opens up the potential for a Green or Independent challenge. If the Greens were to preselect former mayor (and former councillor for the key ward in the seat) – Natalie Abboud – things could certainly get interesting.
Is Oscar Yildiz still floating around?
Yildiz is busy setting up his own political party. Very little policy detail, seems to be jumping on the anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine mandate bandwagon. He may be lining himself up for a run for Northern Metro in the upper house.
the contest is likely to be Labor v Greens anyway, and it’ll be marginal, interesting and close. To be fair, the election is a solid 8 months away, so there’s not much point trying to understand what’s going on just yet.
It is easy to see it being a Labor vs Greens contest on the new boundaries. I just can’t see the Greens vote not starting a high 2 or low 3 and the Labor vote not starting with a mid to high 4. It will be a bit like Wills – ALP getting close to 60% on a 2pp.
Isn’t Labor candidate to be Jana Stewart (ran for Kooyong in 2019) ? Lot more appealing to lefty swing voters v Greens than Blandthorn (a former close ally of Libs in student politics btw).
Antony Green calculates the 2018 primary vote on the new boundaries as follows: ALP 38.3, GRN 20.5, Yildiz 16.4, LIB 11.7.
The swings in 2018 suggest the vast majority of the Yildiz vote came from the major parties. I don’t see this being close.
I predict that this is likely to be an ALP versus Green result, with a decent margin for the ALP.
Yildiz is back with his new party, The Victorians. But it seems a lot of their agenda has been frustration with lockdowns, which may not be a relevant issue between now and the election.
@geoffrey the labor candidate is now not Jana Stewart and is an unknown newcomer. Jana Stewart would have won quite convincingly, but now I am not so sure
The new Labor candidate in Pascoe Vale is Anthony Cianflone, from the same faction as Jana Stewart.
There’s a new Labor candidate here – Anthony Cianflone – but where’s Lizzie Blandthorn going? She just became the planning minister – I can’t find any information on it anywhere?
@Ham Lizzie Blandthorn has won preselection for the top spot on the Western Metropolitan ticket.
Victorian Greens candidate for Pascoe Vale is Merri-bek (Mooreland) Councillor and Legal Aid Volunteer Angelica Panopoulos.
Labor moving Lizzie Blandthorn to the upper house tells me that this seat could in play, they did that in 2018 for Brunswick and ended up losing it to the Greens.
Greens could do very well here it’s just really hard to work out *how* well thanks to the redistribution. Almost willing to say this is a more likely Greens gain than Albert Park.
I personally doubt Greens can win here for some time a lot of this area is more suburban than inner city and the west of the seat is more middle class with some Liberal vote.
I have met both the ALP and Greens candidates. Cianflone is a career Labor politician, bringing youth, who cultivates a base of support among the soccer clubs in particular. Panopolous is a young articulare Greens Councillor at Merri-bek with a Greek migrant background, active in refugee issues. There is a small but very vocal anti-Greens group based in Pascoe Vale.
I think Labor is too far ahead for this to be close. Last elction Independant Oscar Yildiz ran which took away many votes from Labor. He is not running this time. AJP, Reason Party and local Socialist Alliance Councillor Sue Bolton, and Vic Socialists are all running candidates which will take away votes both from Labor, and the Greens to some extent, but maybe not to the extent as Yildiz did.
The boundary changes moves the electorate further south into Greens inner city heartland. But not enough to put this electorate in play. The Liberal vote was 11.4% last time, and at this election they are running Tom Wright, an ecologist. But I think it will be difficult for the Liberals to lift their primary vote. Candidate is there to shore up Upper House votes for Evan Mulholland. I expect the Greens to finish second on primaries. I predict this will be a resonably comfortable win for Cianflone.
I’m seeing quite a number of yard signs for Madaleine Hah around Pascoe Vale. Normally the Socialists have the odd poster taped to a public wall/fence, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen yard signs for them.
Seems like quite a bit of dissatisfaction towards Labor, that’s bleeding through to other Left parties….
If Liberals preference the Greens here (hypothetically), could the Greens win this?
@Ham
Very good question. It’s hard to answer given the large independent vote last time.
It would seem very little of Yildiz’ vote came from the Greens. Let’s combine the Green, Socialist, and Animal Justice vote to say the Greens would have 25% on a Liberal versus Labor versus Greens 3CP.
Now, to reverse engineer Labor’s 72% 2CP from last time… Let’s say around 80% of Greens preferences flow to Labor. 80% of 25% is 20%. So we can estimate that Labor had around 52% of the 3CP, with the Liberals at 23%.
If this is the case, and the Liberals are going to recommend preferences to the Greens above Labor, then the Greens have a real chance here.
* Labor’s 72% 2PP
There’s no way that the Greens will win this electorate. Labor will retain for sure.
Pascoe Vale and Pascoe Vale South (both suburbs) are more Liberal than Green. Coburg and Coburg North are fairly left-leaning.
A possible scenario is that the Libs come second on primaries (recovering from their 2018 result) but the Greens get preferences from AJP and VS and end up in the 2PP.
@Votante
I would agree with you if there were no discussion of the Liberals recommending preferences to the Greens above Labor.
Liberal MPs and Candidates are again sharing “Put Labor Last” messages. Even with that Labor will still be favourites here but if Greens get over 40% TTP, it will set up nicely for the next Election.
Statewide, Labor peaked in 2018 and had swings to Labor almost everywhere but in Pascoe Vale the Labor vote was hampered because of strong independents who split votes. I’m sure that if there weren’t independents last time, Labor would’ve gotten a swing to them. If they recover their vote this time, their “natural” primary vote would be 45% to 50%.
There’s also the possibility that the Liberals will recover their vote from last time and actually end up in the 2PP and in this case, their preferences don’t get counted.
VicSoc have been very prolific in their campaigning here, I am intrigued to see how they will go compared to the Greens who seem to be running a much more low energy campaign.
In terms of the flawed science of corflute density, there are an astounding number of VicSoc corflutes about, so I will be intrigued to see how it goes compared to the Greens.
I know that Greens have touted their prospects here highly, however I would be very surprised to see it come to fruition. While the redistubution has allowed them to pick up some of their more favourable territory in Brunswick, they will still be dealing with the same weaknesses they face in the division of Wills.
Like Wills, the demographics here aren’t in their favour, this is slightly too multicultural of a division for Greens to get over the line. Greens do well amongst young students and professionals who have moved out of home. However Coburg and its surrounds is significantly composed of a decent amount of established multicultural families, in family dwellings, with arguably more conservative social attitudes. These demographics are far more favorable to the Labor Party. I wouldn’t rule out Greens making an appearance in the 2CP contest but they are likely to fall short to Labor.
I understand that it is Greens strategy to somewhat overstate their prospects in some divisions, like this one, to boost morale of their potential support base across the state. This reminds me of some punters touting the Greens prospects in the Queensland division of Moreton along with the other three inner-city Brisbane seats in this year’s Federal Election. Brisbane, Griffith & Ryan had the right composition of demographics and dwelling-types for the Greens. However, Moreton reached further out from the inner-city, encompassing more established multicultural families in family dwellings, namely its Chinese disapora community. Moreton resulted in a conventional ALP vs LNP 2CP contest.
I also think that Votante is right and the 2CP might end up being a Labor vs LIB contest in the vacuum of Oscar Yildiz. Regardless, the composition of the 2CP will be one to watch, even the most likely outcome either way will be a Labor retain.
I still rate the following divisions with a better chance of Greens victory ahead of Pascoe Vale:
1. Melbourne
2. Brunswick
3. Prahran
4. Richmond
5. Northcote
6. Albert Park
@ SEQ Observer, i agree with you. I would also point out the suburb of Pascoe Vale itself is more middle class rather than a working class area gentrified and is more middle ring suburban rather than inner city. It is also quite Catholic and Italian so maybe not as socially progressive. The Libs usually have some what there.
Thinking a bit more on this, perhaps the Greens foresee Labor facing a worse night than expected. Given a strong ‘Put Labor Last’ campaign, the softening of Labor’s first-preference vote on the back of anti-lockdown and anti-Dan sentiment, might be the Greens path to victory here if they hold-the-line and pick up preferences that might have usually gone to Labor prior.
Given Liberal HTV cards, if the Greens have a good night, they could pick up Richmond, Northcote, Albert Park, and Pascoe Vale.
Agree @Nicholas, full disclosure: I do have Greens in Richmond, Northcote and Albert Park (along with Melbourne, Brunswick and Prahran) on the betting slip but haven’t selected a Pascoe Vale candidate just yet. At this stage I think including Pascoe Vale too might just be too bullish, even Northcote and Albert Park is pushing it. I’m expecting 4 or 5 of the 7 to get up.
Just bear in mind that the Greens campaign strategy always runs heavily on projecting optimism, regardless what their data tells them.
Sometimes it’s genuine, sometimes it’s not, you can sift through the ashes of the last few elections to work out which was which.
If we’re at the “put on bets” stage, I’ll chuck 50c on the Greens holding their current three and picking up Richmond and Northcote. Pascoe Vale I don’t think they’ll get over the line.
Brunswick and Melbourne are certain Green retains and Prahran seems safe. Labor’s campaign there seems to have disappeared.
I think Greens would be happy to win Richmond and Northcote. I don’t think they expect to win Albert Park but I feel their 2pp could could very well be in the 40s.
Pascoe Vale, Footscray and Preston are a step too far. Greens will most likely finish in the 2pp but their chances of winning are very slim.
North Metro is guaranteed and Greens should win the South Metropolitan seat back, with the rest of the Upper House, its hard to tell considering Victoria’s dodgy GVT.
My estimate is that GRNs will end up with 9 MPs across both Lower and Upper Houses which should set up them nicely for the next election.
I tried, not very well, to place the federal results in Pascoe Vale, and got something along the lines of Labor 40, Greens 23, Liberal 20.
Which if repeated, and the preference flows from the two Socialist candidates are strong to the Greens, and Liberal voters follow the HTV card, could be very interesting.
Definitely a good position for the Greens to get into 2CP, but it would be extremely unlikely to be a win.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/vic2022/pascoevale2022/comment-page-1#comment-778653
I used to think that Pascoe Vale was, like Preston and Footscray, probably a bridge too far. However, after looking at Kevin Bonham`s recent post about Pascoe Vale and also doing some of my own calculations, I would say that I had underestimated the effects of the redistribution (Pascoe Vale shifted significantly south into what was previously in Brunswick, to cover population growth in Brunswick and Richmond) that probably meant the ALP versus Greens 2PP was around 60-40 on last election votes and ALP preference advising Liberals HTVCs, with likely around 5% shifting to the Greens on Liberal preference advice.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2022/11/modelling-seat-of-pascoe-vale.html
Reason HTV card here preferences Labor over Greens. Every other party has it the other way around. Could be an interesting one to watch.
Lot of people here seem much more convinced of an easy Labor victory than I am, even if I’d agree that Labor’s more likely to hold than not. Kevin Bonham’s blogpost on PV is worth a read for those that haven’t yet. Anyway it’ll be interesting to see where those independent votes end up spraying on election night.
I’m in agreement with the comments here. The biggest obstacle for the Greens winning this seat is that only half of it has their favoured demographic. Without the Liberals directing their preferences to them, this would not be worth talking about. My estimate is that a 7% Labor-Green swing is needed after accounting for the preference change.
As it stands, they are a reasonable outside chance. For what it’s worth, I’ve been happy to bet on them @10.42 average odds.
A question for Mark Mulcair, Connor and anyone else on the ground in Pascoe Vale. You both highlight the activity of the Victorian Socialists in the seat, but in Wills they were outpolled by Merri-bek councillor and Socialist Alliance candidate Sue Bolton, who had 5.6% of the vote when she was eliminated. For Pascoe Vale, she’s managed to negotiate amazing preference deals: #2 from VicSocs and Animal Justice, #3 from Reason (after AJ), then #3 from Libs (after FF) and #2 from Greens. Is her campaign visible on the ground? Could she be the longest of long shots???
I’m no expert but it seems Hah is more popular and visible, simply in terms of people being willing to put her signs in their yards. Sue Bolton just seems to have signs on public fences, walls, etc….haven’t seen any yard signs for her.
@ Tim Colebatch (love your work by the way), I live in Coburg and walk around a bit with my toddler, and I didn’t even realise Bolton was running for weeks. The Vic Soc do have more signage than her but sometimes the enthusiasm of support outweighs its depth. I had forgotten about the split between Bolton and the Vic Socialists; perhaps Bolton wins out with name recognition, which is high owing to her spot on Council and enduring campaigning. Despite being a known Councillor and campaigner, Bolton won’t really get herself from fourth or fifth place to second. Green vote will be up more than enough to get them to second place.
Oscar Yilditz stuffed up not running here again in the Lower House. It was ripe for an upset. He ran a terrific campaign last time and probably precipitated the outgoing Member moving to the Upper House for a more secure position.
I think everyone here should also consider Preston, which i think is more likely to cause an upset than Pascoe Vale. I’ll post over there.
Very much agree Timothy, if Yildiz had gotten his “Victorians Party” project off the ground (or even just run as an independent which would probably be more aesthetically viable to be honest) then he’d be a serious contender here for sure
The Vic Socialists and Sue Bolton could split the Greens vote, including attracting disaffected Greens voters. Some people are far-left socialists or vote based on their socialist beliefs but end up voting Greens because they are the most left-wing party on the ballot.Some (not most) of their voters will send preferences to Labor/Liberal rather than the Greens. I doubt there’ll be a massive swing to the Greens overall.
I think the order of primary votes will go as follows:
1. Labor
2. Liberal
3. Greens
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/vic2022/pascoevale2022/comment-page-1#comment-778977
The redivision made this seat about 10% better for the Greens while it made Preston a little better for the ALP, so this seat is more likely to fall than Preston.
Without getting into which is more likely to fall (except that I think Labor is likely to retain both), there are more factors at play than just the redistribution. Labor’s candidate here seems much better than their Preston candidate, for example.
Two days ago Greens were on $13 in Pascoe Vale on Sportsbet and Labor on $1.08. Today it’s $1.50 Labor and $2.50 Greens. I know Sportsbetting isn’t the most accurate measurement but has things deteriorated really that much for Labor?
@patreon_57
Probably someone at Sportsbet read this thread and panicked. 😉
This is why I always bet before posting my picks 😛
@patreon_57 it could be as simple as Sportsbet receiving $500 worth of bets on the Greens in that seat. The markets are thinly traded.