Big map of the day – swings by booth

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For today’s post I’ve put together a detailed map showing the two-candidate-preferred (2CP) vote in every booth across the country.

The map can be toggled between the swings and the total vote in each booth. Most booths are based on a Labor vs Coalition 2CP (red and blue respectively) but in some places the 2CP includes the Greens (in green) or others (Centre Alliance, Katter’s Australian Party, One Nation and independents, in orange).

This was something I’d been planning but I admit to being reminded of it by this map produced by Nathan Ruser.

In my map you can zoom in and scroll around, and click on each booth to see the 2CP vote and the swing for each booth.

For the image at the top of the post I have shown the swing across south-east Queensland. It shows a similar picture to what we see in every major city across Australia: swings towards Labor in more established suburbs and swings to the Coalition in outer suburban areas.

Let me know which areas you find the most interesting? If there is time I may do specific analyses focusing on interesting electorates down the track, or produce maps showing the primary vote for the larger minor parties.

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24 COMMENTS

  1. Gday Ben, I think it will be extremely valuable to have a proper analysis of Warringah. The manly daily (aka daily telegraph) have already begun trying to construct a narrative of rich vs poor, elite vs working class, and will try and drive this as the context for future politics in the area and to use in its national politicking. Its a scary divisive approach Warringah has never really been subject to, and to me it looks like a very misleading way frame the election outcome. Strong analysis will help.

  2. Firstly, amazing map. But I’m confused by the swings given for the Labor Party in the north of Cooper. The map, and the AEC numbers for the swing suggest it was nearing 50/50 in the region last time, which it wasn’t. Other swings in that seat also seem strange. Am I misunderstanding something?

  3. Very interesting that all across the North Shore of Sydney, booths have swung to the ALP. This is an area which should have been impacted by the change to Franking Credits.

  4. Hi Ben – the seat of Whitlam has no swing map. Is this due to the Liberals not running? Couldthe maps not be done based on the change of Stephen Jones in TCP?

  5. That’s right. The AEC treated the National as different to the Liberal and it would have taken a while to manually match up the booths for swings.

  6. I live in the Hills District and a friend who lives on the North Shire. They are LNP all of them. We live in a safe seat.

  7. Lots here to counter the over-simplified ‘Queensland Did It’ postmortems. My eye was drawn to the new seat of Fraser going blue. Although the 2PP result was the same as 2016, and the seat is very safe Labor, there was a first-preference swing against Labor that amounted to double-digits in a couple of instances. Booths in the south of the seat, areas in the lowest quintile of relative social disadvantage, swung against Labor by 5% to 7% to 9%. United Australia Party polled 8%: their best result. Any ideas?

  8. These maps show that the biggest swings to the LNP were in working class, outer urban and regional areas right across the country, even in Melbourne. At the same time richer and inner urban areas such as the North Shore in Sydney, Inner-East in Melbourne and the 3 innermost electorates of Brisbane all swung towards the ALP. This would not be the pattern expected if the swing was due to the proposed Franking Credits, Capital Gains Tax and Neg Gearing changes.
    I believe there were two factors at play here:
    1. The differing appeal of Scott Morrison to Malcolm Turnbull. They held appeal to opposite sectors of society.
    2. The “Climate Election”. The wealthy voted for Climate as they could afford too, whilst poorer areas voted for jobs and against the additional costs they feared from the ALP’s promised climate mitigation strategies.

  9. @Ben
    Referring to Cooper, not Cowper. The seat formerly known as Batman.
    As an example to why the swings seem strange, the data suggests that there was a swing of 5.66% towards the Greens in Northcote North. But the Greens managed 62.23% in 2016 and 47.25% in 2019. The result for them was 58.66% in the 2018 by-election. None of these results fit with a swing towards the Greens.

  10. I was thinking exactly the same thing Peterjk23
    Watching earlier today Anthony Albanese’s press conference He described the coal industry as an “important employer” in Australia and singled out regions such as the Hunter Valley and Northern Queensland. I think Albo knows that Labor will need a centrist policy position if it is to have any hope of winning back these voters.

    Based on the map, I think the fall in house prices across the capital cities may have helped steered many suburban “mortgage belt” seats towards LNP. Just a theory though at this point.

  11. @Matt
    Yeah, it looks it’s the AEC’s 2CP swing numbers are just wrong, at least for Cooper. They’ve got a Ruthven swinging to Kearney by 31.98%! The swing figures for primary votes look correct. I’m not sure if the issue is repeated for other seats.

  12. I’m always torn between seeing national trends and looking at local issues – I have a tendency to dive for detail. There are 68 votes in it in Macquarie at this time, and I’m considering some points: –
    – The margin of 2.2% translated into less than 2,000 votes back in 2016.
    – the biggest swings to the Liberals in 2019 are in the Hawkesbury, as expected. I would like to know the population changes there and overall.
    – There are fewer informal votes than in 2016 by actual percentage points – need historical data and closer analysis after all are in to better grasp if there was a candidate effect last time that has been reversed.
    – I suspect that mid-mountains booths that shifted in a blue direction may have been due to national issues (mid-mountains is often its own thing, broadly speaking). It’s a very small change in that grouping of 3 booths, less than 30 votes, but enough to make me wonder. The shifts elsewhere in the Mountains are to Labor, mostly.

  13. 2016 Election Boundaries v 2019 Election Boundaries.
    Had Deakin remained with it’s old boundary, would it have fallen to the ALP?
    I would say easily!

    The Labor percentage is it’s 2pp vote at each booth (and the swing).

    Deakin lost the following booths to Chisholm:
    Springview Labor 54.17% +7.73% swing
    Blackburn North Labor 57.93% +11.34% swing
    Blackburn Upper Labor 54.49% +4.71% swing
    Blackburn West Labor 52.33% +1.55% swing
    Laburnam Labor 63.41% +12.85% swing

    Deakin Gained the Booths of:
    Ringwood North Labor 35.29% -2.71% swing
    Croydon Hills Labor 39.09% -0.63% swing
    Croydon East Labor 51.39% +4.41% swing
    Croydon South Labor 47.8% +3.02% swing
    Bayswater Nth Labor 50.53% +1.24% swing

    Gaining booths out east saved Michael Sukkar, especially the Ringwood North and Croydon Hills locations…

  14. @Matt and @Paul. Those examples are right. Unfortunately I’m dependent on the AEC for doing the booth matching for such a large number of booths. If I had to do it myself you’d be waiting a month or two.

  15. Love the map Ben. Heaps to digest. There seems to be a strange gap in Kooyong. Can this be remedied? I’m fascinated to see how the liberal independent Yates & greens impacted Frydenberg’s vote but understand this may not easily be represented in the map.

  16. Very interesting. Peterjk23 I agree with you 100%. It is so bizarre that wealthy areas had big swings to Labor yet these areas would lose out the most based on their tax concession removals, yet it is unlikely young families in outer suburban growth areas have large share and investment property portfolios, but they would have benefitted from free 3 and 4 year old kinder and cheaper childcare.
    Overall it does seem like the ‘larrikin’ appeal, real or otherwise, of Scomo combined with climate disinterest in these areas won it for the Liberals.
    I would say Albanese might have the same appeal to these voters, Albo v Scomo. AlphaZero, Labor may have won on the old Deakin boundaries, and probably would have also won LaTrobe on old boundaries, but mightn’t have won Corangamite.
    Local results interesting. I am struggling to understand the swings to Liberal in the area between Seville and Yarra Junction in the seat of Casey while the rest of the electorate seemed to swing at least moderately to Labor.

  17. Hey there, I love this map. Just a question.. perhaps I am reading it incorrectly. I’m looking at the polling data for Hughes, NSW. According to the AEC info a polling location called “Como West” had a swing of -5.67 away from LNP but your map is showing +2.65. Sorry to be picky. Just want to check.

  18. Not sure what the deal is there. I got my data from the AEC. It’s possible there was an error in the original count which has been corrected.

  19. The result in 2pp terms for Queensland is the worst since the 1996 election where the LNP won over 60% 2pp, with counting complete in Qld, the end result is 58.4% 2pp which is worse than 2001 and 2004.

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