BludgerTrack 2: electric boogaloo

A newly launched aggregate of federal polling suggests an election that may be coming this year will be closer than commonly presumed — if indeed the polls are to be believed.

As we move into what may very well be an election year, the BludgerTrack voting intention poll aggregate is finally cranked back into action. The model, which naturally picked a fairly comfortable Labor win on the eve of the 2019 election, is not quite what it used to be: there are dramatically fewer data points and less depth available in terms of breakdowns (pollsters have promised more rather than less transparency on this score, but thus far largely failed to deliver), which means there’s no point attempting state-level trends and seat projections as was done before.

Nonetheless, and for what it’s worth, you can now see voting intention trends on the sidebar, and in greater detail here. The lodestar for the model is Newspoll/YouGov: the results of the other pollsters, which really just means Essential Research and the occasional Morgan, are adjusted for bias as measured by the extent of their deviation from a Newspoll trend measure. As it happens though, these adjustments don’t amount to much: over time, none of the three pollsters has shown any particular tendency to favour any one party more than the others.

The trend shows a consistently close race through the current term, somewhat in defiance of media narratives, with Labor poking in front on two-party preferred in the wake of last summer’s bushfires but the Coalition maintaining a lead of around 51-49 for most of this year. This pattern is equally evident in the cruder but probably no less effective aggregate that Kevin Bonham knocked together for his comprehensive view of the year in polling. Part of this may be related to the fact that the new YouGov-administered Newspoll has maintained the pollster’s curious habit of being more consistent than the vagaries of random sampling should theoretically lead us to expect.

I’ve also gone the extra mile on the poll data archive, which now includes all of the expanded breakdown data that Newspoll is now providing in its quarterly aggregates (education, income, language and religion, on top of the traditional state, age and gender) and such two-party state breakdowns as Morgan has provided us, right down to two tiny-sample readings for Tasmania. The leadership ratings trends are still in business, though I’ve bumped them in favour of the voting intention trends on the sidebar.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

4,232 comments on “BludgerTrack 2: electric boogaloo”

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  1. Griff

    We are not measuring well. There are a LOT of people with symptoms not getting tested because “couldn’t be me.. isn’t covid”..

    Even when you get a surge of testing, its often poorly distributed, both in terms of geography and in terms of most people doing the right thing and the rest not giving a shit.

    Even a theoretically perfect trace and isolate system will fall over rapidly if you have non-testing in the right groups of people and the right suburbs.

  2. More than a year before the Nashville bombing, police were warned the bomber was “building bombs in his RV.” Standard checks didn’t raise any flags.

    Girlfriend warned Nashville police Anthony Warner was building bomb a year ago, report shows

    NASHVILLE — Sixteen months before Anthony Quinn Warner’s RV exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, officers visited his home in Antioch after his girlfriend reported that he was making bombs in the vehicle, according to documents obtained by The Tennessean

    The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Warner was “not on our radar” prior to the bombing. But a Metro Nashville Police Department report from August 2019 shows that local and federal authorities were aware of alleged threats he had made.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2020/12/29/nashville-explosion-woman-warned-mnpd-warner-building-bomb-2019/4082253001/

  3. Dandy

    What I vaguely remember from Control Theory lectures was time delays turn a controllable system into a disaster and also turn a simple mathematical expression into a page full of domain transfers. Which is the point at which I started playing Asteroids.

  4. Karen Rook
    @KarenrookK

    Mary Louise McLaws said it on ABC this morning. Unless mandatory mask wearing is introduced then NSW heading for at least 100 days before they can get the latest outbreak under control.

    I remember Brett Sutton talking about the “long tail” in Melbourne.

  5. lizzie

    The reason why the end of the Melbourne outbreak was so clean, basically following a decaying exponential all the way to zero, had a lot to do I think with masks.

  6. I understand the problems at sporting venues aren’t due to the ability to distance in the stands but are more to do with using toilets, being crammed into walkways, etc.

  7. Lizzie,
    “Sohar
    I assumed that was a mock-up!”

    Yep. I’d say it has more than its fair share of photoshopping, but the underlying message is the same.

  8. Australia’s complex system of alerts and warning levels for national emergencies will be replaced by a clearer system whereby people will simply check to see if Scott Morrison has fucked off on holidays.

    “If he’s on holidays, assume there’s an emergency gripping the nation. If he’s not, then you can safely say everything is under control,” a spokesperson for the new system said.

    “We saw it last year when the bushfires were ravaging the country – there was some confusion about the various different codes and warning levels. If this system had been in place then, we could’ve just noted the fact that the PM was putting his feet up in a resort, and then instantly implemented emergency procedures”.

    The spokesperson said the new system was already working. “We were uncertain at first of the severity of the COVID situation in Sydney. But then we noted that the PM was on holidays and we knew straight away that we had an emergency on our hands”.

    Despite widespread support, one policy expert criticised the new approach, saying it is still not clear enough. “What we’ve seen all throughout this year is that if Scott Morrison is not officially on holiday then he is unofficially on holiday – building a cubby house for a guinea pig or some bullshit. So it’s very hard to tell the difference”.

    Courtesy of The Shovel.

  9. Zoom
    “I understand the problems at sporting venues aren’t due to the ability to distance in the stands but are more to do with using toilets, being crammed into walkways, etc.”

    Right. Design of stadia and most public meeting venues is driven by fire evacuation and entry queuing criteria. Toilets and food areas are also a challenge. At these points crowding is significant, and would need management to prevent queues of people standing too close.

    No way you can have 20,000 people in a stadium and meet social distancing rules. This is not a matter of opinion; space versus number of people is simple maths.

  10. Gladys might not have locked us down yet, but Woolworths seems to be anticipating a tightening of the current situation. I have just completed my fortnightly home delivery order during which I ordered a packet of toilet paper. At the top of the relevant page was a notice that purchases of toilet “tissue”(their term, not mine) was now limited to 2 per customer. Perhaps I should have ordered two.

  11. My son made a very interesting point about the depth of marketing a leader that Liberals go to these days. He made a negative comment about it but the fact is that, in NSW, whenever you get a phone update on the number of Covid cases for the day, it comes with an embedded photo of Gladys Berejiklian in the image. he said, I see enough of her damn face, I don’t want to see it whenever I check the Covid numbers too!

  12. Extending to the borders of ‘Greater Sydney’…

    JUST IN: A worker at the Greenwell and Thomas Pharmacy at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains has recorded a positive COVID-19 test, according to management. They staff member worked the 26th and 27th December. The new case was not mentioned by the Premier earlier today. @newscomauHQ

  13. Bennelong Lurker
    “At the top of the relevant page was a notice that purchases of toilet “tissue”(their term, not mine) was now limited to 2 per customer. ”

    Squares, or rolls?

    😉

  14. Kakaru

    Don’t think that the options were specifically delineated. I’ll let you know whether I get one square, one roll, or one packet after tomorrow’s delivery.

    Edit: added additional sentence.

  15. Murdoch’s DT front page today (seen at supermarket):

    Virus crisis (small print)

    TEST OF CHARACTER (huge print)

    Not enough people being tested in Sydney, so it’s all YOUR fault for not listening to dear sweet Gladys.

  16. [‘Republican Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, 41, dies from COVID-19 just over ten days after testing positive for the virus. Luke Letlow, 41, told constituents on December 18 that he had COVID-19. He was taken to the hospital on December 21 but was moved to the ICU.

    The father-of-two was being given Remdesivir and a combination of steroids. Letlow had held a number of campaign events – some with masks, some without Letlow, a Republican, won a runoff election on December 5th for the 5th District seat, which represents Northeast and Central Louisiana
    He was due to be sworn in on Sunday and is the first member or member-elect of Congress to die from the coronavirus.’]

  17. phoenixRED

    on the up started ???

    194,860 new cases and 3,398 new deaths in the United States

    It’s as likely that counting is ramping back up.

  18. Trump will spend his last days in ‘nefarious neglect’ of America while trying to enrich himself: Scaramucci

    On CNN Tuesday, outgoing President Donald Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci outlined how he believes the president will spend his final days in office.

    “The last two weeks of the administration, there will be a series of ridiculous pardons, and a series of nefarious neglect, and activities related to setting President Trump and his family for the post-presidency, and some of it will be related to fundraising and some will be pardons with those pardons being tied to something in the future,” said Scaramucci. “It is terrible.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-neglect-america-final-days/

  19. Trump Will Likely Be ‘Overwhelmed’ By Legal And Financial Trouble Right After Leaving Office

    Presidential historian Michael Beschloss pointed out on Tuesday, Trump will most likely be so deep in legal and financial trouble that he won’t have time to lead a conventional post-presidency life – much less mount another presidential bid.

    “This is someone who’s got big financial problems, big legal problems,” Beschloss said of the outgoing president. “He’s going to probably be overwhelmed by them, maybe very soon after he leaves office.”

    Trump whined about how mean everybody has been to him and urged his supporters to keep him in the White House forever.

    Donald Trump will no longer be president once Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20, and the American people will finally get to see why he was so afraid of leaving office.

    https://www.politicususa.com/2020/12/29/trump-will-likely-be-overwhelmed-by-legal-and-financial-trouble-right-after-leaving-office.html

  20. Trump whined about how mean everybody has been to him and urged his supporters to keep him in the White House forever.

    And how are they supposed to be doing that for him?

  21. Dena Grayson, MD, PhD @DrDenaGrayson

    Terrible news. Tough #lockdown restrictions extended in Southern #California—home to >50% of CA’s 40 million people—because ICUs likely to stay 100% filled or near capacity for weeks to come.

    No ICU/ventilator availability – more DEATHS.

    California coronavirus lockdowns extended as hospitals teeter on brink of crisis

    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Strict stay-at-home orders were renewed indefinitely on Tuesday for much of California, a leading U.S. hot spot of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the state’s top health official said that many hospitals were teetering on the brink of crisis.

    Tough restrictions imposed earlier this month on social and economic life were extended in densely populated Southern California – home to more than half of the state’s 40 million people – based on data showing intensive care units there likely to stay filled at or near capacity for weeks to come.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-california-idUSKBN29406A

  22. I can sense the excitement rising on here – Covid 19 outbreak in Sydney / fault of the NSW Liberals. No doubt there are twitter memes which can be reposted too!

    Gleeful reports of every new positive case – that can be personally blamed on Gladys B.

    Not unlike when some on here demanded Gladys attended body corporate meetings for dodgy unit developments (which had been approved under NSW Labor).

  23. In order to try and win the Georgia Senate run-offs, Republicans are trying to do what they always do, purge the voter rolls. Bad luck them, they came up against Stacey Abrams sister, a judge:

    Two Georgia counties must reverse their decision to purge thousands from voter rolls in advance of the state’s 5 January runoff elections that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the US Senate.

    Georgia federal judge Leslie Abrams Gardner said in an order filed late on Monday that these two counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address information to invalidate voter registrations, Reuters reported.

    “Defendants are enjoined from removing any challenged voters in Ben Hill and Muscogee Counties from the registration lists on the basis of National Change of Address data,” she said in the court order. This judge is the sister of Stacey Abrams, the Democratic activist who lost a race for Georgia governor in 2018.

    Of the more than 4,000 registrations that officials tried to rescind, the vast majority were in Muscogee County. President-elect Joe Biden won this county during the November election. Another 150 were in Ben Hill county, which Donald Trump won with a sizable margin.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/29/georgia-senate-runoff-counties-judge-halts-voter-purge

  24. Donald Trump will no longer be president once Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20

    Question for the more knowledgeable: Doesn’t Trump’s term end whether or not Biden or anyone else is sworn in?

    In either case, the time we’re talking about is Thursday 2021-01-21 3:00 AM (Australian East Coast), which I’m told is 4am for folks south of the border. (21 days and 12.5 hours from now.)

  25. Trump whined about how mean everybody has been to him

    I like how bullies always whinge about how badly everybody else is bullying them, and then get taken seriously. Or rather, I don’t like that. 🙁

  26. Why do they do it? This excellent article explains why:

    President Trump’s baseless and desperate claims of a stolen election over the last seven weeks — the most aggressive promotion of “voter fraud” in American history — failed to get any traction in courts across seven states, or come anywhere close to reversing the loss he suffered to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

    But the effort has led to at least one unexpected and profoundly different result: A thorough debunking of the sorts of voter fraud claims that Republicans have used to roll back voting rights for the better part of the young century.

    In making their case in real courts and the court of public opinion, Mr. Trump and his allies have trotted out a series of tropes and canards similar to those Republicans have pushed to justify laws that in many cases made voting disproportionately harder for Blacks and Hispanics, who largely support Democrats.

    Their allegations that thousands of people “double voted” by assuming other identities at polling booths echoed those that have previously been cited as a reason to impose strict new voter identification laws.

    Their assertion that large numbers of noncitizens cast illegal votes for Mr. Biden matched claims Republicans have made to argue for harsh new “proof of citizenship” requirements for voter registration.

    And their tales about large numbers of cheaters casting ballots in the name of “dead voters” were akin to those several states have used to conduct aggressive “purges” of voting lists that wrongfully slated tens of thousands of registrations for termination.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/politics/republicans-voter-fraud.html

  27. Lars Von Trier @ #184 Wednesday, December 30th, 2020 – 2:27 pm

    every new positive case – that can be personally blamed on Gladys B.

    She’s been pretty consistent about resisting lockdowns and border closures and strongly criticizing states which have implemented those things (to pandemic-control success, no less), so…yep.

    Fair enough to blame her personally for when things inevitably get out of hand due to her lackadaisical attitude towards the pandemic and inadequate response.

  28. LvT proving Liberal leaders should be held to a lower standard of personal responsibility than Labor leaders. Of course. Which is what they have conditioned unthinking numpties to think.

  29. Covid Death Toll to Reach 400,000 Before Trump Departs, CDC Says

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now predicts the U.S. will see 400,000 coronavirus deaths by Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump is to leave office.

    The country surpassed 100,000 deaths in May, and 200,000 four months later. It passed 300,000 in three months, and 400,000 looks set to take just one month, the CDC determined using a collection of mathematical models. The U.S. has one of the highest mortality ratios of nations hit hardest by the virus, behind only Italy, Spain and the U.K., scaled for population.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-29/cdc-forecasts-400-000-u-s-covid-deaths-before-trump-s-exit

  30. President Trump’s baseless and desperate claims of a stolen election over the last seven weeks — the most aggressive promotion of “voter fraud” in American history — failed to get any traction in courts across seven states, or come anywhere close to reversing the loss he suffered to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

    But the effort has led to at least one unexpected and profoundly different result: A thorough debunking of the sorts of voter fraud claims that Republicans have used to roll back voting rights for the better part of the young century.

    The RW in Australia are still pushing the same tactics, such as legislation to require voter ID. Perhaps the American experience will enable saner voices to be heard should Morrison try to enact such legislation.

  31. Bennelong Lurker
    “Don’t think that the options were specifically delineated. I’ll let you know whether I get one square, one roll, or one packet after tomorrow’s delivery. ”

    To be on the safe side, avoid spicy curries until you know for sure. Or purchase a copy of the Daily Telegraph – this is one time it could prove useful.

  32. No need to buy copies of the DT if toilet paper is rationed. The Global Times is free at shopping centres and the more copies one takes, the fewer copies available for gullible readers of their extreme right propaganda.

  33. Kakuru @ #193 Wednesday, December 30th, 2020 – 12:58 pm

    Bennelong Lurker
    “Don’t think that the options were specifically delineated. I’ll let you know whether I get one square, one roll, or one packet after tomorrow’s delivery. ”

    To be on the safe side, avoid spicy curries until you know for sure. Or purchase a copy of the Daily Telegraph – this is one time it could prove useful.

    I don’t think many here have been in the position of having to use it as an alternate means of cleansing.

    Hint: Newspaper should be one of your last fallback positions, behind things like taking a shower or going for a swim.

  34. What do you do with young people (18, 19 and 21) who, three days in a row, have spent at least two hours each day in the local shopping mall full of Sydney holidaymakers, but refuse to wash their hands upon returning home because they think it’s “over-reacting” and “too nerdy” to do so?

  35. Bushfire Bill @ #197 Wednesday, December 30th, 2020 – 1:12 pm

    What do you do with young people (18, 19 and 21) who, three days in a row, have spent at least two hours each day in the local shopping mall full of Sydney holidaymakers, but refuse to wash their hands upon returning home because they think it’s “over-reacting” and “too nerdy” to do so?

    Lock the door? 😆

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