One of the big stories of 2025 has been the rise of independents. There was a notable increase in the number of independents who stood at this election, but that in itself is not the most important factor. There is a tremendous range in how well an independent might poll, and how serious their campaign might be.
So for this post I wanted to track how high the independent vote has reached, how that vote breaks between a number of categories of different types of independents, and how that has translated into victories or close calls.
First up, let’s look at the national vote for all independents at each election since 1984. I include candidates who ran as an independent or non-affiliated, but don’t include other quasi-independents like Rebekha Sharkie.
The 2019 result was the highest figure for independents since 1984, but not much outside of the normal range. 2022 already was well above the previous trend, but 2025 was even higher again. At the time of writing, the total independent vote is 7.4%.
I also looked up the share of the vote cast for winning independents. It reached around 1% of the national formal ote for most elections from 2007 to 2010, but dropped back in 2013 and didn’t recover until 2022.
Right now the vote share for winning independents will be slightly higher in 2025, even though Kylea Tink didn’t run for re-election, and Zoe Daniel has been defeated. Andrew Gee’s candidacy has helped, as has the tendency of the incumbent teals to increase their primary vote. If Nicolette Boele and Carly Moore win, the independent winning vote share will climb from 2.3% to 2.7%. If not, it only climbs to 2.4%.
I’ve also included another line for candidates I call “teal adjacant”. For 2022, refer to this blog post, although at the time I included Rebekha Sharkie, and now for the sake of consistency I am not.
For 2025, refer to Kevin Bonham’s best efforts to define four broad categories of independents.
I have calculated the vote share of candidate numbers for each of these categories as defined by Kevin. About a quarter of independents can be defined as “teal”, and 7-8 of these candidates have won (depending on the Bradfield recount). They get a much higher average vote, at 18.9%, compared to 3% for uncategorised independents.
Nationally, these teals, narrowly defined, polled 4.8%. If you broaden them out slightly, including people like Andrew Wilkie, that number climbs to 5.3%. The equivalent group in 2022 polled 3.6%.
Any national political party polling over 5% would be impressive. It’s particularly impressive considering they barely stood in a third of seats. In comparison, One Nation polled 6.4%.
The concentrated vote also helps them win, but there are still a lot of votes cast for independents who fall short.
Another fascinating statistic at this election is the number of non-classic seats, and in particular those where an independent made the top two. By my reckoning, I expect 35 non-classic seats: 22 contested by an independent, and 13 contested by a minor party.
All of the growth in this category has taken place in independent seats. About the same number of seats had a minor party in the 2CP in 2016, 2022 and 2025, but the number of independent 2CP contests has grown from 7, to 16, to 22.
In addition, there are numerous other seats where an independent has come close but fallen short of the 2CP. Once the full distribution of preference data is published, we’ll be able to calculate how many seats came close with much more precision, but I expect we’ll find Grey, Fisher, Monash and others will rank on that list. Seats in that category were previously very rare. I expect we’ll eventually be able to classify at least 25 seats where independents either made the 2CP or came close.
So while the number of independents won’t go up much in 2025, their presence is much stronger than before. A lot more seats are now defined by an independent contest. That doesn’t mean more seats will easily fall into the independent column next time. The failure of independent challenges in Wannon and Cowper show how hard it can be to bridge that final gap. But they’re unlikely to immediately return to being safe seats.
