11:12 – Alright I think that’s it for tonight.
I won’t be putting up another blog post analysing these results, but I’m going to be looking into the way the by-election has been spun in my Patreon newsletter on Monday. If you want to read it when it comes out, go sign up at Patreon.
11:01 – I think we’re close to the end of the night but I thought I would use the same groupings I used for the pre-election guide to look at the swing in a more simplified way.
There wasn’t a very clear geographic trend in the swings. The smallest swings were in the south, the most conservative part of the seat (and the only part in the Mornington Peninsula council area). The swing was biggest in the centre of the electorate, but not by much.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP 2022 | ALP 2PP 2024 | Swing to LIB |
| Central | 57.6 | 53.7 | 3.9 |
| North | 60.7 | 57.3 | 3.3 |
| South | 47.2 | 45.3 | 2.0 |
| Other votes | 54.9 | 47.5 | 7.4 |
| Pre-poll | 55.8 | 51.6 | 4.3 |
10:36 – And now we have the Carrum Downs pre-poll booth, where there was a 4.04% swing to the Liberal Party.
10:15 – The giant Frankston pre-poll booth has now reported, and the 2PP swing was 4.45% – more than the seatwide average so far, but not particularly high.
9:39 – We’re still waiting to get those big pre-poll booths reported. But we have all of the election day booths in, so I’ve finished my booth map, showing the swings and the percentage.
8:58 – I’m more confident in my previous call but it would be nice to see a few more pre-poll booths reporting 2PP figures. The enormous Frankston PPVC has a relatively modest swing to the Liberal Party on primary votes, so that’s another good sign for Labor.
8:37 – I’m going to be away from my computer for a few minutes so here’s a quick summary of the state of play.
With 27 out of 36 booths reporting 2PP figures, the swing to the Liberal Party is at 3.85%. This includes a batch of almost 4000 postal votes and most election day booths, but no pre-poll votes so far.
We do have one pre-poll booth reporting primary votes, and that was a relatively good one for Labor. At the moment there’s a swing of about 0.5% to Labor on primary votes, and a swing of 7.4% to the Liberal Party.
8:28 – We have the first batch of postal votes reporting, and it’s a swing of less than 6% to the Liberal Party (although it might not be comparing like-with-like). All the same, that’s not enough for the Liberal Party to be winning.
With 25 booths reporting and the 2PP swing currently sitting on 3.48%, I’m calling that Labor will win the Dunkley by-election.
8:20 – We now have 22 booths reporting the 2PP figure, and while there was a slight uptick in the swing it’s now dropped back to just 2.8%.
And we now have 30 booths reporting primary votes, including a pre-poll booth in Mount Eliza where Labor gained primary votes.
8:07 – After 17 2PP booths, the Liberal swing is back up to 3.3%. By the way I thought I would generate my end-of-night map early to see if there’s any trends. Generally it looks like the Liberal Party’s biggest swings are along the south-eastern fringe of the seat.
7:55 – Well the 2PP swing continues to shrink down to 2.49% after thirteen booths, although I expect when we get up to around 20 booths it will be a bit bigger.
7:48 – The 2PP swing has dropped further, to just 2.67%, but the last four primary vote booths to report have reduced the swing to Labor, so that could be a sign of the Liberal 2PP swing bumping up when those booths report a preference count.
7:43 – We now have 2PP figures for ten booths, and the swing to the Liberal Party is down to 3.3%. Meanwhile the Liberal primary vote swing is just under 7% off 17 booths, with Labor up 1.76%.
7:36 – We’re now up to six 2PP booths, with Labor down 4.3% overall. The Liberal Party gained a 3.95% swing in Skye and a 7.79% swing in Karingal Central. These numbers at the moment are not strong enough for the Liberal Party to win, but there’s still a lot of booths yet to report.
7:22 – The 2PP swing in Mt Eliza Central was actually 0.8% to Labor. The overall swing is down to 4.1%.
7:21 – With ten booths reporting primary votes, the swing to Labor is up to 1.7%. I’m probably at the point where I won’t be reporting each individual booth swing, but Langwarrin North, Frankston South, Skye and Karingal Central have all reported.
7:16 – We’re continuing to see some really positive results for Labor. They’ve gained a 6% primary swing in Mount Eliza West. This means their primary vote swing overall after six booths is now 1.3% towards them.
7:14 – Another positive primary vote swing to Labor and modest swing to the Liberal Party in Seaford North.
7:13 – And we’ve got a 5.1% swing against Labor in Frankston Heights East. If that figure was replicated across the seat Labor would narrowly retain the seat.
7:12 – Just a 1.55% swing to Liberal Party on 2PP in Carrum Downs West.
7:10 – It turns out the third booth was Carrum Downs West, not Carrum Downs, and that booth has now reported 2PP figures. Overall it has brought the swing down to 6.8%, but I can’t see what the booth swing was there.
7:07 – Mount Eliza Central is the fourth booth to report primary votes and is much better for Labor than its northern neighbour. There’s a 3.9% swing to Labor, and a swing of just 0.4% to the Liberal Party.
7:00 – And Mount Eliza North’s two-party-preferred figures are now in, with a 9.98% swing to the Liberal Party. But we already know the next two booths were not quite so bad for Labor.
6:57 – Carrum Downs and Frankston Heights East have now reported, and the swing against Labor is down to just 1.6%, and the swing to the Liberals is down to 9.8%. Still a good start for the Liberal Party but a bit more modest.
6:51 – The first booth is Mount Eliza North, and it shows a 13% swing to the Liberal Party and a 6.2% swing away from Labor. There has also been a 4.85% swing away from the Greens there. It’s worth noting that three right-wing parties polled 3.9% there in 2022 but aren’t running today, so that may be exaggerating the Liberal swing, but overall not a good start for Labor.
6:00 – Polls have just closed for the federal by-election for the Victorian seat of Dunkley. Join me as we follow the results tonight.
Should read 10k less
As a alp voter I would prefer Dutton to stay. I don’t think he can win. The liberals are in a quandary as there is no one to take over from him
@mick as a liberal voters I want him to stay I think he can win maybe not in 2025vbut in 2028. This is just like America where both sides want trump
Both major parties can claim some success or at least seeing that their parties are going in their desired direction. I wouldn’t overrely on the ‘average by-election swing’ metric. There are several combinations – swing in any seat, swing in a government seat, swing in a first-term government seat, swing following a member’s death etc. There’s also Peta Murphy’s immeasurable personal vote. On some metrics, you could say that Labor did ok and on other metrics, Labor did poorly.
Both major parties got swings on primaries. Given the ongoing shift to minors and independents, it’s astounding to see both parties go up. The 2PP swing of just under 4% may embolden Dutton to continue his outer metropolitan strategy in seats like Paterson, Blair and Lyons, but not so much Dunkley. I mentioned earlier that a redistribution might just strengthen Labor’s margin.
The turnout rate tends to be lower at by-elections. Younger generations are less likely to vote at by-elections. The result is quite skewed since they’re less friendly to the Coalition. This is another thing to keep in mind when apply the Dunkley by-election result to the federal election.
@votante it will but not by much 0.5-1% at most. And a targeted campaign could see the seat fall given the sympathy vote won’t be there. I imagine peta Murphy’s personal vote stayed Labor here.
Paterson and Lyons already gone in my opinion
That’s very wishful thinking. By-election swings are basically never replicated at general elections. Furthermore, the average swing at a government-vacancy by-election is 6-7%, so on that metric this was quite an underperformance by the coalition.
@expat not that’s just the bs albo was peddling. The AVG swing is 3-4% even less when it’s due o the death of a member so this was an AVG result