Sun Oct 20

Labor retains office at ACT election; US presidential election remains on a knife’s edge

Written by Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

The Labor Party has won a seventh consecutive ACT election.

The ACT uses the Hare Clark proportional representation method with five five-member electorates, for a total of 25 seats. A quota is one-sixth of the vote or 16.7%.

For Saturday’s election, the ABC is calling ^[1] ten Labor seats, eight Liberals, two Greens, one Independent for Canberra (IfC) and one other independent, with three still undecided.

Labor has won a seventh consecutive term ^[2], having governed in the ACT since 2001, often in coalition with the Greens. At the 2022 federal election, the ACT gave Labor ^[3] a 67–33 two-party win, easily the most pro-Labor jurisdiction. This strong left lean makes it difficult for the Liberals to win ACT elections.

Vote shares were ^[4] 34.5% Labor (down 3.3% since the 2020 election), 33.0% Liberals (down 0.9%), 12.5% Greens (down 1.0%), 8.5% Independents for Canberra (new) and 11.5% for all Others (down 3.3%). Postal votes have not yet been counted ^[5], and these should help the Liberals.

Nearly all pre-poll votes and some election day votes were cast electronically. Provisional preference distributions for these votes were published on election night ^[6], with paper ballots to be added to these electronic votes in the coming days.

Analysis of each of the five electorates follows. The final seat result will probably be ten Labor (steady since 2020 ^[7]), ten Liberals (up one), three Greens (down three), one IfC (new) and one other independent (up one). If this occurs, Labor and the Greens will retain their combined majority with 13 of the 25 seats.

In Brindabella ^[8], the Liberals won 2.57 quotas, Labor 2.05, the Greens 0.55 and IfC 0.45. Analyst Kevin Bonham says the Liberals ^[9] are likely to win the last seat after postals are counted.

In Ginninderra, Labor has 2.26 quotas, the Liberals 1.52, the Greens 0.89 and IfC 0.45. Bonham says the Greens and Liberals easily win the final two seats on the provisional distribution.

In Kurrajong, Labor has 2.20 quotas, the Liberals 1.41, the Greens 1.07 and IfC 0.83. IfC easily wins the last seat on the provisional distribution.

In Murrumbidgee, the Liberals have 2.06 quotas, Labor 2.02, independent Fiona Carrick 0.78 and the Greens 0.57. Carrick easily wins the last seat.

In Yerrabi, the Liberals have 2.19 quotas, Labor 1.86, the Greens 0.71 and IfC 0.58. The Greens easily defeat IfC on the provisional distribution.

Harris dips in polls, but US presidential contest remains tight

The United States presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate ^[10] of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 49.1–46.8, a gain for Trump since last Monday ^[11], when Harris led by 49.3–46.5. Harris’ national lead peaked on October 2, when she led by 49.4–45.9.

Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2.

The US president isn’t elected by the national popular vote, but by the Electoral College, in which each state receives electoral votes equal to its federal House seats (population based) and senators (always two). Almost all states award their electoral votes as winner-takes-all, and it takes 270 electoral votes to win (out of 538 total).

Relative to the national popular vote, the Electoral College is biased to Trump, with Harris needing at least a two-point popular vote win to be the narrow Electoral College favourite in Silver’s model.

In Silver’s state poll aggregates, Harris leads by just 0.4 points in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) and Wisconsin (ten). She leads by about one point in Michigan (15 electoral votes) and Nevada (six). Trump leads by 0.8 points in North Carolina (16 electoral votes), 1.4 points in Georgia (16) and 1.8 points in Arizona (11).

If Harris holds her current leads in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, she likely wins the Electoral College ^[12] by at least 276–262. But Harris’ margins in these states are now very narrow.

While Silver’s model is still effectively a 50–50 toss-up, Trump is now the slight favourite with a 51% chance to win the Electoral College, up from 48% last Monday. Harris’ Electoral College win probability had peaked at 58% on September 27. There’s a 26% chance that Harris wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College.

While Trump was the favourite in Silver’s model between late August and mid-September, this is his first lead in FiveThirtyEight since early August.

Silver said on Friday ^[13] that current economic conditions imply Harris should win the national popular vote by about one point, so the contest is trending towards this outcome. But Trump would be likely to win the Electoral College with just a one-point Harris advantage in the popular vote.

Liberals lose Pittwater to teal at NSW state byelections

Byelections occurred Saturday in the New South Wales state Liberal-held seats of Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater. Labor did not contest any of these byelections. In Pittwater, The Poll Bludger’s projections ^[14] give teal independent Jacqui Scruby a 54.1–45.9 lead over the Liberals, a 4.8% swing to Scruby since the 2023 state election.

Current primary votes are 53.7% Scruby (up 17.3%), 42.4% Liberals (down 2.6%) and 3.9% for a Libertarian. The Greens had won ^[15] 6.8% in 2023, but did not contest, presumably to stop left-wing votes exhausting under NSW’s optional preferential system.

The other two byelections were easy Liberal holds, with the Liberals beating the Greens by 61.6–38.4 in Hornsby ^[16] (58.0–42.0 against Labor ^[17] in 2023). The Liberals won Epping ^[18] by 65.8–34.2 against the Greens (54.8–45.2 against Labor ^[19] in 2023).

Federal Morgan poll and NT redistribution

A national Morgan poll ^[20], conducted October 7–13 from a sample of 1,697, had a 50–50 tie, unchanged from the September 30 to October 6 Morgan poll.

Primary votes were 37.5% Coalition (steady), 30% Labor (down 1.5), 14% Greens (up 1.5), 6% One Nation (up 0.5), 9% independents (steady) and 3.5% others (down 0.5).

The headline figure uses respondent preferences. By 2022 election preference flows, Labor led by 51–49, a one-point gain for the Coalition.

The Northern Territory has two federal electorates: Lingiari and Solomon. It had been seven years since the last NT redistribution, so a new redistribution was required, and this was released Friday.

ABC election analyst Antony Green said Labor’s margin ^[21] in Lingiari was increased from 0.9% to 1.7%, but decreased in Solomon from 9.4% to 8.4%. This is a draft redistribution, but there are not expected to be any changes before finalisation.