Eden Monaro by-election 4th of July

[Lord Halifax]

According to the betting markets ALP are bigly favored to win this thing, but there is an internal from 12/6 with the Liberals ahead.

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6163550597001

[CumbrianLefty]

That might do the ALP a favour if it protects against complacency.

[Cassius]

Why is Eden-Monaro so favourable to Labor (by the standards of divisions predominantly located in rural New South Wales)? Spillover from the ACT? I know that Kelly had a decent personal vote but that doesn’t explain Labor‘s continued competitiveness.

[Lord Halifax]

Two new polls, both from uComms.   

One from 18/6 with ALP at 53% and the Liberals at 47% in the two party vote and one from 16/6 with ALP at 52% and the Liberals at 48%.

[Estrella]

ABC's election analyst Antony Green has written an amazing in-depth guide to this by-election with, among other things, the answer to your question, Cassius.

For those interested in more, Antony also has a blog about Aussie politics.

[Lord Halifax]

So how do Aussie posters see the situation now? Still, Labor's to lose?

[CumbrianLefty]

Morrison is currently getting sky-high approval ratings after Australia's relatively sure-footed approach to tackling coronavirus - if the coalition lose here despite that, might it worry them a bit?

[Roblox]

Morrison is currently getting sky-high approval ratings after Australia's relatively sure-footed approach to tackling coronavirus - if the coalition lose here despite that, might it worry them a bit?

FWIW it's extremely rare for the party in government in Australia to flip a seat in a by-election, so it wouldn't be a special electoral indictment. However, I do find it interesting that the two party preferred vote in polling is stuck at 51-49 LNP despite Morrison's sky high favorables.

[Lord Halifax]

Morrison is currently getting sky-high approval ratings after Australia's relatively sure-footed approach to tackling coronavirus - if the coalition lose here despite that, might it worry them a bit?

FWIW it's extremely rare for the party in government in Australia to flip a seat in a by-election, so it wouldn't be a special electoral indictment. However, I do find it interesting that the two party preferred vote in polling is stuck at 51-49 LNP despite Morrison's sky high favorables.

What polls are you referring to?

[Roblox]

The last few Newspolls, as well as a Morgan poll showing 50.5-49.5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Australian_federal_election

[Lord Halifax]

The last few Newspolls, as well as a Morgan poll showing 50.5-49.5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Australian_federal_election

Okay, I thought you were talking about Eden-Monaro.

Labor seems to be on top of the postal voting game.

"That suggests that the Labor party is making sure many of its older and less mobile voters actually get their vote in."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-29/eden-monaro-early-voting-popular-among-voters/12401256

[Walmart_shopper]

Twenty percent of the vote has been counted and ALP is projected to win by 5.3%. Not overwhelming or anything, especially in an ALP seat, but a small improvement from the last election and a reasonably cheerful result for Labor.

[Walmart_shopper]

30% counted and the size of the projected ALP win down to just under 2 points. It would be a pretty rough blow to actually lose this, and frankly that it's so close can't make Labor feel very good.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

30% counted and the size of the projected ALP win down to just under 2 points. It would be a pretty rough blow to actually lose this, and frankly that it's so close can't make Labor feel very good.

Current ABC projections are about a 1% swing towards them, so I don't see why they wouldn't be feeling good. The current numbers aren't that close, especially given the seat in question.

[Intell]

Gotta love how weak right-wing preferences for the Libs are.

[CumbrianLefty]

How are the remaining "pre-poll" votes (almost half the total, apparently) likely to go?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

And at the end of the night all the pre-polls have now come in along with preliminary 2pp for about half of the postals (51-49 to Libs). Labor has a raw 2pp lead of 2k votes, and to make that up the Liberals would need to win about 57% of remaining votes, which is basically impossible.
So at this point we can definitely call the by-election for Kristy McBain, though the current margin of 51.2-48.8 should decline a little bit on the final outstanding votes.

[GoTfan]

Anthony Greene has effectively called the race for Labor. Liberals need 60% of the remaining vote, he says.

https://twitter.com/AntonyGreenABC/status/1279436429441945600

The story I see here as an ALP member is that we have a PM with high approval ratings who stuffed the division with infrastructure money with a state Labor party that has been rocked by scandal after scandal, and he's still managed to lose it.

I want to point out the misconception that this is a safe ALP seat. It's actually fairly marginal. 2016 was the first time in a long time it was won by a party that ended up in opposition.

[CumbrianLefty]

I agree, the ALP can be happy with holding this - even narrowly.