Psephology by the numbers
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Let's look at how the polls have moved in the past six or so weeks. Budget's rarely move opinion polls; however, the May 2026 Budget was an exception. Both the Coalition and Labour dropped in popularity around the Budget and One Nation picked up the lion's share of that drop. Since then we have seen relative stability. One Nation has dropped a touch, and the Greens and Others are up a touch. The…
Probabilities The probability chart tells a story of steady erosion. For most of 2025, Labor sat comfortably above 70 percent, a position that looked close to unassailable. From early 2026 that lead began to slide, gently at first and then sharply, and the latest reading puts Labor at just 46.3 percent. The Coalition has firmed over the same stretch, lifting from the mid-20s to 30.5 percent. The…
Because the reaction to the May Budget appears to have been both quick and significant, I have loosened the day-to-day innovation term in my Gaussian random walk model from 0.1 to 0.15 percentage points. This term is the standard deviation of the day-to-day change in underlying voting intention: a larger value lets the modelled series move more rapidly in response to genuine shifts. It also means…
Primary votes While it looks like Labor and the Coalition have each fallen a similar amount in the polls, around 7 and 7.3 percentage points respectively, this comparison uses each party's mid-2025 polling level as the starting point. A fairer benchmark is the 2025 election result, which is what each party actually achieved at the ballot box. Measured this way, the picture changes sharply. Labor…
For decades, Australian political watchers have leaned on one figure above all others. Not the primary vote share. Not preferred prime minister. The two-party-preferred number, the 2pp, the share each major bloc ends up with once preferences are distributed. It is two things at once: the headline number pollsters publish, and the figure the electoral commission reports on the night. In most…
One Nation's primary vote has surged from ~9% in mid-2025 to 23.5% in my latest poll aggregation. That's nearly 4x their 2025 federal election result of 6.4%. The trajectory is remarkable. Steady climb through late 2025, accelerating from October onward, then plateauing around 23% from February 2026. The leadership changes (Taylor for the Libs, Canavan for the Nats) coincide with the plateau…
Preferred Prime Minister Satisfaction Net satisfaction
Two Party Preferred Primary votes
I am now applying the same Bayesian aggregation techniques I use to the opinion polling. I wrote extensively about those techniques here . The results are as follows: Albanese - preferred leader Ley - preferred leader Albanese - satisfaction Ley - satisfaction Comparison charts
