Wentworth: a pollster’s view three days out
October 17, 2018 by J-Wire Newsdesk
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Raphaella Kathryn Crosby believes that either Kerryn Phelps OR Tim Murray could win.
The operator of The Voter Choice Project told J-Wire: “It was a pretty volatile last week and there will be some movement, but I expect the result closer to 52-48 than 55-45. Depending on what excitement we get in the next few days!
The Phelps vote is really unstable, whereas the Heath, Murray and Sharma votes are fairly solid. So as the campaign wisdom goes, Heath, Murray and Sharma should all pick up a point or so in this last week – but whether Phelps jumps up or down is hard to predict. My gut feel is down to about 20ish… and Murray possibly overtaking her, but my gut is wrong about half the time.
The panel (which is not a representative sample) did change to Sharma 1, Murray 2, Phelps 3, Heath into double figures at 4 – but that has an 8 point margin of error – the panel is for detailed study of motivations and behaviours, not a ‘poll’. It showed Heath and (to a lesser extent) Murray had the momentum – Heath taking votes off Murray, Phelps and particularly the Greens, while the undecideds were breaking overwhelmingly for Murray. To put it another way, if someone is going to vote for Phelps they’ve already made that decision, and a good number of them are nervous about it and may change.
Now, the problem with that assessment is that the entire conversation in the media is being reduced to a Sharma v Phelps fight. Australian media (particularly News) doesn’t deal with 3 or 4 cornered contests well. There’s a lot of talking heads saying Labor is running dead when they aren’t, and the negative framing of Licia Heath by the Wentworth Courier as an ‘also ran’ is really unacceptable. It will be difficult for either of them to cut through in this last week – but social media is the most influential medium, and there are no gatekeepers there.
The Liberal party is likely to be defeated to in next years general election. We Victorian remember when we had good PM’s and competent government in the days of Menzies, Holt, Gorton and even Hawke all Melbourne based. Liberal leadership from Sydney has been a disaster.
Anyone can win but who will win is the issue. I dont think the ALP has a change in Wentworth but Phelps could do well and win with ALP, Greens and other candidates preferences.