If we gather together all 199 polls taken since January 2008, sort them on the basis of the ALP two party preferred vote estimate, and then measure the percentage of times that every two party preferred result has occurred, something pretty astonishing happens.(click to expand)
To read the chart, just pick an ALP two party preferred result on the bottom axis and it tells you the percentage of polls that have registered that exact TPP figure. We can break that down even further into Phone Polls (consisting of Newspoll, Nielsen, Morgan Phone Poll and Galaxy) and non-phone polls (Essential Report and Morgan Face to Face)
As you can see, the phone polls skew to the lower end while the non-phone polls skew to the higher end – although some of that is to do with the non-phone polls being in the field more times during the (dare I say it) “Honeymoon” period between January and Easter of 2008.
We can take these numbers and turn them into a cumulative distribution curve, that let’s us see the proportion of times that the Government has polled greater than or equal to any given two party preferred figure – and we’ll do this for all 199 polls, and then again for just the phone pollsters:
Remember when a party getting 55% in a poll created headlines of impending doom for their opposites? To show just how blase we’ve all become lately, 97% of all polls taken during the Rudd government have shown the ALP to be on a two party preferred off 55% or greater. Even if we just use the phone polls, 91.2% of all phone polls have shown the ALP to be on a TPP of 55% or greater.
Poll after poll, these extraordinary results roll in and we all just go “Oh yes, there’s another one“.
Landslides have become normal.
19 Comments
Using Antony Greens election calculator, a 55% 2PP would give Labor 97 to the LibNats 50 with three indis.
Keating got 49 seats in 1996, so anything less than that must be pretty historic.
Amazing isn’t it. This time 2 years ago we were hanging on every poll.
I noticed the ABC barely reported Monday night’s newspoll and particularly the preferred Prime Minister one which used to be important when John Howard was in front.
You need one extra word in the last line, “Landslide polls have become normal”.
The same conclusion could have been drawn from polls in 2007. Between January 2007 and when the election was called in October, 95% of Newspolls had Labor on 55% or above. Of the five polls after that date, four had Labor on less than 55% and the final election result was 52.7%.
The volume of polls giving a result and the margin of error on polls might give you some confidence on whether polls are measuring current between election public opinion, but they can’t tell you whether the poll is a good predictor of the next election outcome.
That’s not a criticism of your work Possum. It’s a warning to people who use your margin of error caluclator based on a current poll, or take your probability estimates of winning on the poll, and then send me an e-mail saying these calculations prove Labor will win the next election.
You still getting emails like that? Ha!
The most interesting thing about the next election (assuming these poll trends continue) will be the actual result (well, duh!). Looking back over the polling data in the modern media era – say, since Hawke, we’ve had oppositions riding high in polls only to have their lead contract by election day – perhaps the power of incumbency.
But with governments that have experienced big, solid trend polling leads like Rudd’s, they’ve nearly all gone on to actually end up with results similar to the polls. Beattie comes to mind, Carr in 2003, Rann in 2006 and Bracks in 2002. Big polling leads becoming big election wins – perhaps with the power of incumbency helping that.
I’m open minded about whether a federal government can get 55% of the TPP at an election. On the one hand I can see that it’s a really rare occurrence, yet on the other we’ve had that very thing play out in the States when Oppositions are hopeless. This coming election should answer that one was or the other, because if Rudd cant get a 55% considering the political context, then probably no one can.
It’s one of those oddities of Australian history that the landslide Labor victories achieved at state elections rarely get repeated at Federal elections. Historically, Federal Labor has been viewed as the centralising party, so its results in the outer states have been a drag on the national figure, especially when defeated. That the economy and interest rates play a greater roll at Federal elections also play their part for a generation that remember the Whitlam government and the early 1990s recession.
The biggest stand-out in three decades of polling is Rudd’s rating as Opposition Leader. We’ve never seen anything like that. I’m sure Labor hard-heads remember how popular Hawke was and how well Labor was rating when the 1984 election was called, and how the end result was a swing against Labor.
Did you notice that that last Galaxy poll had a sample of 9200. Huge!
Hamish – last Essential I think it was. 9129.
I think we can safely say it was a typo!
Would those sort of figures transfer through to a major change in the balance of power in the Senate? That being the main game at the moment I think.
That sort of figure could potentially translate into 3 Lab, 2 Lib, 1 Green from each state (other than WA) at a normal election.
The biggest predictor of the number of Senate seats a party get is it’s primary vote in the lower house, but the variation is so big it actually makes it pretty meaningless.
With the Coalition only having received a primary of 40% or more 7 times so far under Rudd, their lack of generic support is their biggest danger in the Senate. The problem though is how the variation of that at the state level will play out. In some States they will probably find themselves in serious trouble for the 3rd seat, but others it probably wont make much difference.
Hamish at 1 – and that was on the old distribution of seats. After the redistribution is finalised, Labor is probably looking at 100+ seats, if 55% is replicated at the election.
And Poss – what states do you think the Lib’s 3rd seat is in danger?
I have no idea JimmyD, I’m completely hopeless when it comes to the Senate
The Coalition is struggling in SA, and Qld will surely become more balanced. But other than that, Antony or Pollbludger or Mumbles are probably the people to ask.
1984. Some interesting research was done in Cook & Philip by Ernie Chaples for a never published book on the 1984 election. But Rudd is far more disciplined than Hawke and there aren’t the niggling issues; assets test etc. that counted against Labor in 1984. I think a 1984 rerun is a possibility but so also is a smashing Labor victory, and a rational media would seriously consider this.
A 1.77% swing in NSW from the Coalition to the ALP+Greens, all other things being equal, would result in the third Coalition candidate in NSW losing to the Greens. I think that’s quite plausible, considering a 55% two-party-preferred vote would be a swing of over 2%.
The recent pattern in state elections has been that ALP governments first win a narrow majority before going on to win a massive majority for their second term. This applied to Carr, Bracks, Beattie, Rann. I was just wondering whether this was also the pattern in previous eras? Because if it is a newer phenomenom, it’s been 25 years since a federal Labor government last tried to win a second term, so it might be a bit much to claim that this pattern in state elections doesn’t apply federally.
There was a narrowing from the polling figures to the actual election result no doubt because of Howard and the natural fear of change people have and that was with an extremely popular Opposition leader.
This time around the Opposition leader is not at all popular and the Govt has been doing well, especially on the economic front. If there is again a narrowing/widening toward he Govt at the next election then 55 might be seen as the low point for Labor.
Ben Raue. It will be interesting to see what happens next year when Victoria goes to the polls. A Labor government elected on a protest vote against the Liberal Party’s well established leader Jeff Kennett got into power over ten years ago. The equally successful contender who became Labor Premier, Steve Bracks, resigned over a year ago and handed the mantle to the Deus et Machina of the state Labor Party, John Brumby, who isn’t exactly the most popular Premier in our history.
Going on those facts one could be forgiven for thinking the Coalition will in at a canter.
Wrong!! The leader of the Opposition, an agreeable if not all that bright Ted Baillieu is the victim of the various warring factions of his own Liberal Party. Michael Kruger-the king maker who hasn’t got the bottle to run for the leadership himself, Jeff Kennett is another strong manipulator. Then, drum roll….The divine Peachy Costello, who is always a contender but always folds. He is now threatening to join the state branch of the Liberal Party.
It will be fascinating to read Poss’s comments on this approaching nightmare. Do you not agree.
Venise, what do you base this statement on – other than your own obvious dislike of JB?
His Newspoll ratings as Premier have been in the 48-52 range for “satisfied with his performance” – not as high as Bracks, but more than reasonable, and his preferred Premier ratings are even higher (OK, so there isn’t much competition there…)
Anyway, these figures suggest he is a reasonably popular Premier.
The rest of your facts are similarly suspect. If Bracks merely fell into power as the result of a ‘protest’ vote, why did three by elections in quick succession after the election go his way? The protest had already been successful; there was no reason for voters to continue to punish Kennett.
It wasn’t a protest, it was a determined effort on behalf of the electorate to rid themselves of a government that wasn’t doing what the electorate wanted it to do. When they got a government that did, the Victorian people made it clear that they were more than satisfied. Brumby is continuing to deliver what (most) Victorians clearly want, and that – not the Opposition’s woeful performance – is why Labor is odds on favorite to win the next State election.
Geoff Robinson @12 – “a rational media would seriously consider this”. That would be your problem right there!
EnergyPedant, JimmyD and anyone else interested in the Senate – Antony has a very thorough state-by-state analysis here, which looks at both double-dissolution and normal half-senate possibilities.
I really can’t take the non-phone polls seriously at the moment. I’m sure the gap is large and the next election may well be a thrashing, but I just don’t credit 60+ 2PPs. They’re doing something wrong or the electorate is fast asleep.