Early Predictions Ain’t So Alban-Easy!
2022 Australian federal election part 1: early seat-by-seat predictions
May 21st, 2022. That’s the day.
Being the hugest election nerd that exists, it’s an understatement to say I am BUZZED.
So buzzed, in fact, that I spent the last few days painstakingly reviewing every single one of the 151 federal seats, one at a time, and making an early prediction on how the dominoes will fall come May 21.
To be super clear — I am doing this for fun. I am not a political analyst, staffer, adviser, or party member. I want to challenge myself to analyze another election and put my copious political content intake to a true test of knowledge.
If you think this is beyond me, then you haven’t seen the 4 part analysis I did on 2021’s Canadian Federal Election where, in Part 3, I correctly predicted Justin Trudeau’s Liberals winning a weakened minority government.
Let’s go!
For the early predictions, I did the following:
- Scoured the profile of all 151 electorates on The Poll Bludger in order to understand demographics, background, profile, candidates and more
- Supplemented this information by looking up additional background and demographics data on both the Guardian Seat Explorer and the ABC Electorates page
- Reviewed each electorates “Pork Barreling” based on the Guardian’s Pork-O-Meter to get an early indication of a party’s intentions
Here’s the plan:
- I’ll be following the campaign trail daily to keep my predictions up to date. I have been doing this daily by listening to podcasts and reading articles from the ABC, Crikey, The Saturday Paper, The Conversation, and The Guardian. I’ll also be tuning into a few hours of ABC news daily.
- I will release a “late predictions” piece on May 20th to see what changed between today (start of campaign day 4) and the day before polls close (day 40).
- I will release a “aftermath” piece shortly after the election, similar to my results piece I did for the 2021 Canadian Election (depending on the result, I might have moved my family to a cave off the grid somewhere because of it)
So what were my predictions? Check ’em out!
Who will win the Election?
Labor will squeak out a majority government with exactly 76 seats. The Coalition will get 66, and the crossbench will increase to 9.
I am banking quite heavily on the unpopularity of Prime Minister Morrison for the never-ending list of blunders, the ability for Labor to cut through on their “Labor Cares” platform, and the electorate simply having had enough of the Coalition.
It’s not lost on me that Scott Morrison is a savvy master campaigner that can spin better than Nathan Lyon, and, that Anthony Albanese has his work cut out for him as he stares down the barrel of a hostile mainstream media.
All the professional pundits say this will be a seat-by-seat contest, so that’s exactly what I did. Seat-by-seat: Labor is probably going to win.
What seats will change hands?
LABOR: Despite much bigger margins to get to 76 seats, I am bullish on the ALP’s chances in Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia. I am bearish on their NSW campaign and think they will lose ground in the Northern Territory to the Nationals. Victoria and the ACT will show up as they always do. Labor will flip these 14 seats:
- Bowman — QLD (10.2%)
- Brisbane — QLD (4.9%)
- Dickson — QLD (4.6%)
- Flynn — QLD (8.7%)
- Forde — QLD (8.6%)
- Banks — NSW (6.3%)
- Reid — NSW (3.2%)
- Bass — TAS (0.4%)
- Braddon — TAS (3.1%)
- Boothby — SA (1.4%)
- Sturt — SA (6.9%)
- Pearce — WA (5.2%)
- Swan — WA (3.2%)
- Chisholm — VIC (0.5%)
COALITION: By contrast, the Coalition has a lot of seats on small margins to win from the ALP. I think the Coalition will continue to do well in coastal and rural New South Wales, snag a couple in Brisbane, and take half of the NT. The Coalition will flip these 7 seats:
- Corangamite — VIC (1.0%)
- Dobell — NSW (1.5%)
- Gilmore — NSW (2.6%)
- Parramatta — NSW (3.5%)
- Griffith — QLD (2.9%)
- Moreton — QLD (1.9%)
- Solomon — NT (3.1%)
CROSSBENCH: This is where the LNP gets into trouble. It’s safe to say Clark (TAS, 22.1%) will say with popular independent Andrew Wilkie, Kennedy (QLD, 13.3%) with FNQ superhero Bob Katter, and Melbourne (VIC, 22.6%) easily with the dominant Green’s leader Adam Bandt. Savvy independent Zali Steggall should comfortably retain Warringah (NSW, 7.2%).
When it comes to the more marginal seats: Helen Haines will hold a close Indi (VIC, 1.4%) as will former Nick Xenophon Team/Centre Alliance’s Rebekah Sharkie in Mayo (SA, 2.5%) on the back of statewide anti-LNP sentiment.
The real wildcard is in the power of the continued rise to ‘teal independents’ under both the Voices Of movement, and, the Simon Holmes à Court Climate-200 backed candidates. After seeing the level of panic in the “great men” of the LNP, and the scare campaigns being run by NewsCorp on Sky, it’s hard to believe these female candidates aren’t in it with a big chance, representing voters who’ve had enough of the political status-quo.
I think Zoe Daniel will easily take Goldstein (VIC, 7.8%) from Tim Wilson, Dr. Monique Ryan will spectacularly unseat Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong (VIC, 5.4%), and despite Dave Sharma’s best efforts to distance himself from the damaged Liberal brand, he will narrowly lose his seat of Wentworth (NSW, 9.8%) to Allegra Spender.
See you all in just over a month’s time for my updated prediction and analysis.
