ReachTEL – State Labor Back To The Lifeboats

ReachTEL (Tas State): Lib 52.5 ALP 19.7 Green 15.6 Other 6 Undecided 6.3
Interpretation: Lib 57 ALP 22 Green 17 Other 4 (Other perhaps higher)
Outcome based on this poll “if election was held now”: Liberal Victory (c. 15 seats)

[..]

What I would really like people to notice there is not the yawning disparity between the top two figures but rather the Undecided figure of 6.3%. This is for a way of asking the question for which the equivalent undecided rate in the last EMRS poll was 19%. It is still further evidence (not that any is actually necessary as the point has already been proven using old Morgan polling) that the high Undecided rates recorded by EMRS are not an innate feature of Tasmanian politics, and indeed are just not real!

[..]

This poll is yet another state poll that shows the Liberals headed for majority government and leading by a ridiculously large margin – the result recorded by every poll whether public or private that I have seen since early 2011. Indeed, the Labor vote following simple redistribution of the undecided, 21%, is lower (by one point) than any poll in the EMRS series, while the Liberal vote (56%) is one point higher than any EMRS result. This could indicate that this ReachTEL is an unnaturally extreme result, but it doesn’t have to. Another possibility is that the assumptions that are used in distributing the high EMRS undecided rate are actually a bit generous to Labor and that the EMRS-undecided voters are actually more than proportionally Liberal-leaning.

[.]

And for the record, with 35 seats, the ReachTEL alone comes out at 21-8-6 (five Libs in both Bass and Braddon), the last EMRS would have been about 18-13-4, and the aggregate returns either 20-10-5 or 21-9-5. Switching to 35 seats, it seems, would save the existing furniture … and give all the new stuff to the Liberals.

Read more, comment here: http://kevinbonham.blogspot.comau/2013/06/reachtel-state-labor-back-to-lifeboats.html

If you have a question or comment for Dr Bonham you can post it on his site. You will need to have (or to create) a Google/Blogger account, LiveJournal profile, WordPress account, AIM profile, TypePad account or OpenID to comment.