The Tally Room

We've had two polls come out in the last few hours showing remarkably divergent results. Galaxy has brought out their second poll of the weekend. After a poll conducted on Thursday and Friday gave the ALP a lead of 52-48 on a two-party preferred basis,...

News reports are unanimous in reporting that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is on the way to Canberra to meet with the Governor-General and ask for an election. There doesn't appear to be consensus on whether Gillard will call it for the 21st or 28th. The...

Many commentators have reacted with great surprise to how long it took the Liberal Party to preselect candidates for the Western Sydney marginal seats of Lindsay, Greenway and Parramatta. Parramatta was held by the Liberals until 2004, Lindsay until 2007, and Greenway is still...

A year ago I made a map where I colour-coded seats in the NSW parliament according to gender. With the rise of our first female Prime Minister, and the impending federal election, I figured it would be worth making a similar map for federal...

I don't usually post about the regular polls that we will see more of over the next few weeks as we plunge into the election, but I'll make an exception for the two polls coming out overnight. We have had two polls in the last...

Murray is a safe Liberal seat in northern Victoria. It covers Victorian towns on the southern side of the Murray river, including Shepparton and Echuca. The seat has always been held by conservative seats. It was held by John McEwen from 1949 to 1971, during...

Yesterday I finished the final seat in the guide to the federal election. I have now posted all 150, which you can access in alphabetical order, by state, or by visiting the pendulum. I have also written up a summary of political events over...

From media reports, it appears that Julia Gillard is set to be comfortably elected as Labor leader and Prime Minister tomorrow morning. The question then becomes: what does she do about the impending election? She will surely be planning some changes of key policies, possibly...

I've now created a few booth maps showing the primary vote results for the Greens and the two-party preferred figures for the Liberals (who won every single booth), as well as maps showing the swings in each booth. With regard to swing figures, I have...

I thought I'd jot down some thoughts on the results in today's by-elections, primarily in Penrith and to a lesser extent in Hawkesbury. Make no mistake, this was a massive result for the Liberal Party and a colossal disaster for the ALP. It's always possible...