Federal election poll: Majors cop swings, but ALP holds the edge

A new federal election poll of 1073 Australian voters shows both major parties are struggling to win over voters, with both Labor and the Coalition suffering primary swings.

Unlike most other published polling, the DemosAU/QuestionPro/ItsOurVoice poll, conducted on April 22 and 23, did not involve showing respondents a generic voting question with the names of the major parties and prominent minor parties.

Instead, respondents were shown a voting intention question based on their local electorate, with the names of all local candidates included in ballot paper order, to better reflect the choices facing voters in the lead up to May 3.  

The federal election poll shows both majors losing ground to independents and minor parties, with Labor suffering a 1.6% swing to 31% and the Coalition vote down 3.7% to 32%, with 14% of voters still undecided.

Majors suffer when Undecided voters are forced to choose

However, once undecided voters were forced to make a choice – via a follow up question – the swing against the major parties increased – with Labor’s primary down 3.6% to 29% since the last election and the Liberal National Coalition down 4.7% to 31%.

On a two party preferred basis, Labor leads the LNP 54% to 46% on the initial question, which narrowed to 52-48 following the forced choice question.

The federal election poll showed a 4 point increase in One Nation’s vote to 9% (after the forced choice question), with the Greens climbing 1.8 points to 14%, and independents up 1.7% since the last election to 7%.

DemosAU Head of Research George Hasanakos said the result pointed to a continuation of the long term trend of declining vote shares for the major parties.

“With each election, fewer Australians are putting number 1 against either Labor or the Liberal National Coalition on their ballot paper – and that looks set to continue this election, barring a sharp change in the final week of the campaign. 

However, he said despite both parties suffering a swing in the poll, voters had expressed a preference for Anthony Albanese over Peter Dutton, with the Labor incumbent leading the Opposition Leader 43% to 34% as preferred PM.

“The shift away from the major parties is hurting both sides of politics, but this poll confirms the consensus that Labor continues to hold the edge over the Coalition.”

However, he said with 14% of undecided, there remained scope for all parties to win over a sizeable portion of voters, though time was running out.

“The challenge for all parties will be to try to engage those voters during the final week of the campaign,”  he said.

The poll was conducted in partnership between DemosAU, with its growing track record of highly accurate Australian polling, QuestionPro, a global leader in research technology solutions and ItsOurVoice.com, which empowers communities to collectively engage elected officials and clearly communicate how they want to be represented on key issues. 

Check out our Methodology Statement and Tables for more information.

Sign up to our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest in Australian polling and market research.

Have a project to discuss? Get in touch.