Labor wins surprise landslide, returned with a thumping majority

With 52% of enrolled voters counted, The Poll Bludger has Labor ahead in 92 of the 150 House of Representatives seats, the Coalition in 43, the Greens in two, independents in 11 and others in two. In called seats, Labor is on 76 (already a majority), the Coalition 32, independents six and others two.

Labor has gained ten seats and the Coalition has lost ten, including Peter Dutton’s Dickson to Labor. It’s amazing that Labor has held the Victorian seat of Aston, which they had gained from the Coalition during Labor’s honeymoon period.

The Poll Bludger gives Labor a projected national two-party preferred vote of 54.5–45.5, a 2.4% swing to Labor since the 2022 election. Current primary votes are 34.7% Labor (up 2.3%), 30.5% Coalition (down 3.9%), 12.8% Greens (up 0.3%), 6.2% One Nation (up 1.3%), 2.0% Trumpet of Patriots (new), 8.1% independents (up 4.5%) and 5.8% others (up 0.6%).

I believe this election result was mostly because Dutton became too close to One Nation and Donald Trump for the Australian people to tolerate. Dutton would have done better to have stuck to the cost-of-living issue and avoided culture wars.

With the addition of the YouGov poll below, Albanese finished the campaign at a net -4.2 using an average of five polls in the final week that asked for leaders’ ratings. Dutton finished at -20.8.

The Canadian election on Monday and now Australia’s election demonstrate the left’s ability to win elections. Many thought Trump’s election would herald an era of right-wing dominance, but both Canada’s Conservatives and Australia’s Coalition lost what had looked like wins two months ago. Both leaders also lost their seats.

Before the 2022 Australian election, I wrote that Australia and Canada could be strong for the left owing to big cities that make up a large share of the population in both countries. The right’s gains in the last decade have been biggest in regional areas.

The polls understated Labor at this election, with none of the ten polls by different pollsters conducted in the final week putting Labor’s two party share above 53%. The Morgan poll that was conducted April 14–20 gave Labor a 55.5–44.5 lead, but Morgan’s final two polls retreated back to a 53–47 Labor lead.

The Ipsos poll below that gave Labor just a 51–49 lead and the Freshwater poll that gave Labor a 51.5–48.5 lead were particularly poor. I will give a full assessment of the polling when the results are nearly complete.

This is the poll graph I’ve been publishing with the provisional Labor two-party win by 54.5–45.5 marked.