By George Hasanakos, DemosAU Head of Research.
The Final DemosAU/Ace Strategies poll shows South Australia is on the cusp of a remarkable election result. Looming ever larger is the prospect of one of the state’s largest landslide election results and the birth of a new major state political force.
While the final poll has indicated some of the shine has come off the Labor vote since early February, the dramatic split in the non-Labor vote has opened the door to a landslide on the scale of the 1993 State Bank election.
Malinauskas and Labor are also benefiting from a benign to positive view of the state from voters. This isn’t a view that shared by all voters, however when strong pluralities have a positive view of the premier (49%), believe the state is going in the right direction (44%), and consider the government deserves re-election (46%), the incumbents are not just winning by “default”.
Malinauskas’ pitch to the electorate as centrist is also reaping rewards away from the political left, with Labor polling 41% among centrist and 28% among right-wing voters in a tight three-way race with the Liberals and One Nation. Even with left wing voters, despite becoming bogged in controversy with the Adelaide Writers Festival, Labor leads the Greens 48-35%.
Despite these positive indicators, Labor’s primary vote in the DemosAU/Ace Strategies poll has fallen 6 percentage points from 43% in February to 37% today. If this result was reflected at the election, Labor would suffer a 3% primary vote swing against it compared to 2022. Why is this so?
Simply put, Labor was so far ahead before the campaign it had attracted many non-traditional Labor voters. Even now Labor is doing well in demographic cohorts where it usually attracts much less support. In this poll Malinauskas’ Labor is polling a 39% primary among over 55s. In Victoria, State Labor only reaches 21% among the same age bracket.
The mutual attrition of campaign attacks and the self-inflicted scandal surrounding the Health Minister Chris Picton has taken some voters away from Labor who otherwise tolerated the Malinauskas Government. For these voters, SA Labor was going to be re-elected anyway, so they could vote elsewhere to keep a check on a second term government.
We see these voters in their preference for Malinauskas to stay in office by looking at the Preferred Premier breakdown of these groups.
Malinauskas leads Hurn as preferred premier 74-4% among Green voters, 46-21% among Independent voters, 41-14% among minor party voters and even 32-29% among One Nation voters.
It is that last figure which may be pivotal to Liberals looking to retain their seats especially in metropolitan Adelaide. They will lose a large chunk of their vote to One Nation and desperately need the vast bulk of it back in preferences.
If One Nation voters were stridently anti-Malinauskas then that could be a possibility. But with One Nation’s open how-to-vote and a benign view of Malinauskas among their voters, it may manifest itself into a large swing that dislodges many metro Lib MPs.
One Nation’s dramatic rise is the other side of this remarkable poll result. One Nation now has a 6 percentage point lead over the Liberals and is now threatening to become the State Opposition. One Nation has made impressive gains among the 35-54 age cohort (25%), mortgage holders (26%) and voters with TAFE and/or apprenticeship qualifications (29%).
One Nation has also recorded a 39% primary vote among rural and regional voters. Given the small sub sample, this figure must be treated with caution. However it is not unreasonable to expect a One Nation primary in regional and rural SA of 30% or more, if their state wide vote is north of 20%.
Such a result should put One Nation in the final count in most regional and rural seats. The seat gains will depend largely on who will make the final count. In One Nation v Labor counts, the former can rely on Liberal preferences. If the final count is One Nation v Liberal, then the latter will have the edge thanks to Labor and Greens preferences. If the final count is One Nation v Independent, the order of the major parties’ HTV will be critical. Despite all this, the closer the One Nation candidate can get to 50% primary the less likely preferences will matter.
Political hard heads will be looking at these preference flows closely not just for how they will determine the seat winners in this election but what implications they have federally, for the Farrer by-election and beyond.
Whatever happens, this election will provide an answer to anyone wondering whether One Nation’s polling surge will translate into lower house seats at an election.
