ReachTEL polls have large swings to Labor in NSW marginals

ReachTEL has taken six marginal seat polls for the NSW Teachers Federation. All polls were conducted on the 20 June, the day after Labor’s campaign launch, with samples of 600-650 per electorate. Labor is winning all six seats polled with 53-55% Two Party Preferred (2PP); all seats are currently held by the Coalition. This picture showing tweets from poll watcher GhostWhoVotes gives the swings to Labor since the 2013 election.

The 2PP votes used respondent allocated preferences, but previous election preferences give much the same results. Labor is ahead of the Liberals on primary votes in two of the six seats, tied in a third, and the three seats where Labor narrowly trails on primary votes have strong Greens votes.

In Dobell, Lindsay, Page and Gilmore, there have been swings to Labor since the last time these seats were polled, in Eden-Monaro there was no swing, and Macquarie had not been polled before during the campaign.

Individual seat polls have not been reliable, but the consistency of the swings, and the improvements for Labor since previous polls of the same seats, are a worry for the Coalition. If these swings are happening in other states, and not just in NSW, Labor could win the election convincingly.

If there is a general swing to Labor, the most plausible explanation is Labor’s Medicare ad campaign. The vast majority of voters would not want Medicare privatised, and Labor’s ads may have created doubt about the Coalition’s Medicare plans.

These six NSW marginal seat polls are Labor’s best polling news of the campaign so far, but we need to see national polls to ascertain whether there has been a genuine move to Labor.

While these polls were conducted for a Labor-favouring group, voting intentions were asked first in all seats, and there is no suggestion that the results have been skewed.

In this week’s Essential, Labor continued to lead by an unchanged 51-49 margin. The fieldwork was taken 9-12 & 16-19 June from a sample of 1790. The Liberals continued to be perceived as better for corporations, high income earners and small business, with Labor perceived as better for other people.

39% thought Labor had made the most spending promises, and 13% thought the Liberals had. 34% thought the Liberals had made the most spending cuts, with only 9% picking Labor. By 37-14, voters thought the Liberals would be most likely to reduce the deficit, with 30% opting for no difference.

40% agreed that it was reasonable to describe the British colonisation of Australia as an invasion, and 41% disagreed. 31% thought the Coalition was best for jobs, 27% Labor, 4% the Greens, 5% Pauline Hanson and 3% Nick Xenophon.

The Poll Bludger’s BludgerTrack is now at 50.2% 2PP to the Coalition, and Kevin Bonham’s poll aggregate is at 50.3% 2PP to the Coalition. Both aggregates currently have the Coalition winning a majority of seats, but all polls in these aggregates were taken prior to Labor’s campaign launch.