Wow

Last night I was asked if I was surprised by the result. The short answer is yes! Not because Labor won (that was my working assumption) but that it won with such a thumping majority. The national two-party preferred vote is currently sitting at 55.37 per cent for Labor, with some 70 per cent of the vote counted. While I expect that total will come back a touch as the remaining vote is counted (postal votes often favour the Coalition), it will remain an historic win for Labor. Right now the ABC is projecting the following seat count in the new 150 seat Parliament:

• Labor - 85 seats (they won 77 seats in 2022, in a 151 seat Parliament)
• Coalition - 36 seats (previously 58)
• Greens - 0 seats (previously 4)
• Others - 10 seats (previously 12)
• Undecided - 19 seats

Polling fail?

Was it a polling fail? My initial thought is maybe. Again, its not that the polls got the winner wrong, but that they did not capture the scale of Labor's win. The average poll estimate since 1 April had Labor on 52.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote (better than my Bayesian aggregation of 52.1 percent). The interim result is 2.9 percentage points off that mark. On the same metric, the 2019 polls missed by 2.9 percentage points. So far, only one poll since 1 April was better than the interim result for Labor. Nonetheless, because the postal and absentee votes can change things, we will need to wait until all the votes are counted before we come to the question of whether there was a polling fail. 

To be fair, I did warn over the past week that the under-dispersion in the polling data meant that the risk of a polling error was heightened. When I was asked on X/Twitter whether it is possible for the polls to “herd” in a way that underestimates support for the ALP, in contrast to 2019, when polls herded to overestimate it; I simply responded "yes".

Betting markets

In the end the betting market foresaw a Labor win, but the individual seats market only anticipated minority government or a small majority government. Again, this aligns with the polls. 

Other surprises

Some of the outcomes that surprised me a little were:

• The Coalition may hold just one seat (Berowra) north of the Harbour Bridge in Sydney (a former Coalition stronghold), with Bradfield potentially going to the independent Nicolette Boele, and Bennelong going to Labor.
• An 8.1% swing on the night to Labor in Tasmania - no Coalition seats remaining
• The Greens losing two seats: Brisbane (to Labor) and Griffith (to Labor)
• Bean (ACT) - the independent Jessie Price has the possibility of defeating sitting Labor member David Smith
• Bullwinkel (WA) - it is possible the Coalition might win the notionally new Labor seat
• Calare (NSW) - it looks like the former National turned independent Andrew Gee will be returned.
• Dickson (Qld) - Opposition leader Dutton trounced in his seat
• 10.2 per cent swings to Labor in Bonner (Qld) and Leichhardt (Qld)