More than a quarter of Victorians are uncommitted about which party to vote for at next month’s election, an unusually large proportion that political pundits say offers the struggling Liberal Party a glimmer of hope to create a tight race.
Pollsters and major party insiders give the Coalition little chance of winning but agree the margin could be tightened if the opposition capitalised on the 27 per cent of Victorians, surveyed in the Resolve Political Monitor, yet to make a firm choice.
Victorians go to the polls on November 26.Credit:Fairfax Media
Voters who make their choice on election day can have an outsized effect on election results. They did so in the 2018 election when only a small fraction of late-deciding voters opted for the Coalition, causing a lower primary vote than polling suggested.
Both major parties believe the number of “soft” voters, who are leaning one way but not rusted on, and undecided voters, who are not inclined to vote for anyone, is higher than in 2018, elevating the importance of campaigning and advertising in the crucial weeks leading up to the poll.
Resolve director Jim Reed said the proportion of uncommitted Victorians was about double the amount who were unsure before the federal election in May. In NSW, where an election will be held in five months, 22 per cent are uncommitted, Resolve’s data shows.
“We still find that more than a quarter of the [Victorian] electorate are yet to lock in their vote choice, and the fact that this indicator isn’t falling suggests that many voters are not fully engaged in the contest,” he said.
“This tells us there’s scope for votes to move around between now and election day, but given the uncommitted vote is fairly equitably spread across Labor, Coalition and ‘others’, the propensity for it to flow only in one direction is unlikely.”
Redbridge political consultant Tony Barry, who was a close adviser to Opposition Leader Matthew Guy at the 2018 election, said there was an anti-government sentiment among the uncommitted cohort. But he warned that these voters would only swing to the opposition if they felt it was fit to govern and the “Liberals haven’t yet reached minimum expectations”.
“The Liberal campaign has 14 days before pre-polls open to give these soft voters the confidence they can vote Liberal or at least use their vote tactically to send Daniel Andrews a message,” he said.
“If Liberal campaign headquarters can produce an advertising message to shift this soft vote segment into the Liberal column then we could see a real tightening in the final weeks.”
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy.Credit:Eddie Jim
Resolve’s poll of more than 800 Victorian voters, taken between October 20 and 24, shows the Coalition on track for a drubbing that could trigger another existential crisis in the Victorian Liberal Party, which lost key seats at the federal election.
However, a Labor source said there was a risk of the government being punished by uncommitted, late-deciding voters who fuelled the 2018 “Danslide”.
“In 2018, the opposition was campaigning on the wrong issues. People didn’t care about Safe Schools and weren’t interested in African gangs. This time, at least they are talking about the right issues and have focused announcements in their target seats,” the source said.
“The main reason people are voting for us at the moment is that people think the Liberals are no good. But will the people who leave it to the last day to vote, the people who can decide elections, think the same thing when they walk into a polling booth after seeing the premier’s face on a billboard and thinking about how they’ve felt the past two years?”
Premier Daniel Andrews leads Guy by 33 percentage points in net terms when voters were asked to rate the leaders’ performance. When asked to rate the premier’s performance, 54 per cent of respondents said it was good while 36 per cent said it was poor. For Guy, 31 per cent said he was performing well and 46 per cent said he was not.
Labor leads the opposition by between 10 and 20 percentage points when asked if the parties communicated well, had a united team, were competent and had a vision.
The poll reveals the Coalition is, by a narrow margin, seen as the better party to manage the state’s finances, lending weight to the opposition’s recent focus on Victoria’s high debt rate. In each other policy area, including transport infrastructure (18 point lead), handling COVID-19 (17), and environment and climate change (11), Labor leads.
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