Australian Federal Election 18th of May 2019

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The error in the primary vote was unacceptably large in my view, the polls had the Coalition up 2% in the primary vote on average, 38-36, they won it 41-34, by 7%, that's a 5% miss in the primary differential.

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MY HOT TAKE: Polling is never going to be trustworthy again. There are too many "culturally conservative " voters who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters, but not ashamed enough to meaningfully self-reflect about it.

It sure seems that way in many elections around the world. "Undecideds" seem to favor the right wing party (or parties) and in an election where the polling is very close seems to suggest that the right will succeed in the election. People scoff at the "add x points to Trump's total to make it accurate" thinking, but it is probably a more realistic way of looking at polls. Though if we're talking about the general election in the United States next year, I could imagine that people won't be so skittish about declaring their support for the President this time around.

Good point.

Many polls in the 2018 Ohio Gubernatorial election showed Cordray not only winning, but Dewine receiving 41-46%. He ended up getting 50% on election night. Every time I see polls with any conservative, not just Trump, at 37% or 43%, I just ignore it.

I mean, one of the central facts of the 2018 Ohio race was that there were high undecideds through to the very end, since DeWine and Cordray both ran as Generic Ohio R and Generic Ohio D respectively but Ohio has a state establishment that's unusually cool to Trump by Midwestern standards and a higher-than-normal number of Obama/Trump voters who were unsure which of the two they preferred. Cordray did indeed lead in the final polls, but the average of the last six polls (conducted in the final week) had him up 46-44, with most of the undecideds vaguely culturally conservative. Pundits mostly thought the race would break for DeWine, which it did. (50-47).

Kind of interesting to compare, since in principle polls were much further off on the final margin than they were in Australia, but expectations and narratives were managed in such a way that the final outcome surprised very few.

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Returning to the actual topic of this thread, one aspect of this election that seems understated is the very poor campaigning by various third options. One Nation lost seats in the Senate compared to 2016, and minor other right-wing parties were virtually annihilated (though Lambie will return to the Senate). Independents lost seats in the House, and the Greens mostly slid in their target seats (though a favorable Senate map seems to have helped them).

This contrasts with the actual fact that support for both of the main parties...slid. Is this an election which strengthened Australia's duopoly, or just one in which lucky targeting caused what looks like a respite from the general rise in support for minor parties?

I think given the preferential voting system Australia uses, breaking the 2 party hold on power is virtually impossible. Minor parties don't run candidates in most seats because of it and this has a flow on effect in the Senate, you need candidates in each division to maximise your senate vote as well so people actually know about your party.

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2 party vote now 51.4-48.6, will probably shift a bit more towards Coalition as final votes counted, looks like we will end up at complete opposite of polls, poll average had Labor up 41.5-48.5, final result will be mirror of that, 3% miss in vote share, 6% miss in total margin using American methodology. Don't know how Nate Silver or Sean Trende can argue the polls weren't off by much, in America if Clinton had led by 3% and Trump had won by 3%, would have been viewed as huge polling miss.

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2 party vote now 51.6-48.4, will shift a little more in favour of the Coalition as the vote count continues, the polls that had Labor up 51.5-48.5 with a 3% margin of error are now outside the margin of error. As the vote count continues and the Coalition's 2 party vote rises, more and more polls are falling outside the margin of error

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https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/The-2019-Australian-Federal-Election-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study.pdf

New election study out, a lot of interesting data on how people voted by age and gender.

https://twitter.com/redrabbleroz/status/1203778788376510464/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1203778788376510464&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tallyroom.com.au%2F39138

48% of men voted Liberal + National vs 43% that voted Labor + Greens.
38% of women voted Liberal + National vs 52% that voted Labor + Greens.