How would the One Nation surge translate into seats?

There has been a clear trend in recent federal polling – One Nation has been gaining ground, seemingly at the expense of the Coalition. We’ve now reached a point where One Nation are regularly polling in the mid-teens. If they were to achieve such an election result, it would be the highest vote share polled by a minor party in a federal election under the modern party system, in excess of the best results for the Greens or the Democrats.

There’s a long time to go before the next election, but it does raise questions about what an election held with current polling might look like.

Thankfully pollster DemosAU has given us a glimpse of what this might look like, with the publication of a new MRP poll.

The top-level figures for this poll have been a talking point throughout this week, but for this blog post I wanted to use this poll as an opportunity to look at what we do know and what we don’t know about how a surge in the vote for a minor party might change how an election works.

It isn’t just one pollster showing this One Nation surge. The party polled 6.4% at the 2025 federal election (running in 147 out of 150 seats). The first Roy Morgan polls in June 2025 showed the party still on 6%, but the first Redbridge post-election poll in late June had the party on 9%. They first cracked 10% in an August-September Redbridge poll and have been in double digits in every poll since the end of September.

Five of the nine latest polls have One Nation on 17% or 18%. This has been found by Redbridge twice, as well as Spectre Strategy and by MRPs from DemosAU and YouGov.

The DemosAU poll was released on Tuesday, with a sample size of 6928 respondents, conducted from October 5 to November 11.

The headline figure of twelve One Nation seats is shocking, but it gives us an insight into how our electoral system might operate differently if a minor party was to poll this highly: particularly when they get close to parity with one of the major parties.

It is worth stating that MRPs should be taken with more than a grain of salt. They can give you a general sense of how the vote will play out in our electoral landscape, but I wouldn’t put too much focus on any one electorate. In this case, there is a lot of unknowns about how a One Nation surge would go.

The MRP includes a number of steps, and I am more qualified to analyse some of them than others. Firstly, DemosAU has used their large polling sample to estimate primary vote figures in all 150 electorates for Labor, Coalition, Greens, One Nation and “others”. I won’t try to interrogate this result.

Secondly, they determine which two candidates are most likely to be in the two-candidate-preferred count, and then they use estimates of preference flows to calculate a 2CP. This then allows them to classify seats based on who is winning and by how much.

It is the estimates of preference flows where I think these estimates become the least reliable, and I will dive further into that issue later in this post.

What makes this poll most fascinating is how it explores the ways in which single-member electorates can produce distorting results, where a relatively small shift in votes can totally change the dynamics in numerous seats.

DemosAU have One Nation making the 2CP count in 49 out of 150 seats, up from just two at the May 2025 election. There were a further three seats where they didn’t include ON in the 2CP but it was a close-run thing, with ON either outpolling or tieing with one of the top two on primary votes. DemosAU has One Nation polling 25% or more in 21 seats, and 30% or more in eight seats.

Just 76 out of 150 seats (a bare majority) would be classic Labor vs Coalition contests.

If this was to come true, the dynamics would be totally different in those seats, and would be far more volatile. The leading candidate had a primary vote of 37% on average across the 150 seats. The leading candidate would only poll 40% or more in 52 out of 150 seats. Preferences would become more crucial, with orders of elimination deciding numerous seats.

Let’s go back to those 49 seats with One Nation making the final count. These seats understandably tend to the conservative and rural. Just 25 are Labor-held, with 21 held by the Coalition and three held by others (Calare, Indi and Kennedy). That is barely a quarter of all Labor seats, but almost half of the Coalition’s current seats. These seats are mostly outside the cities. 22 of these seats are classified “rural”, 12 are “provincial”, and 15 are “outer metropolitan”. That’s about half of all rural and provincial seats.

Of the twelve seats that DemosAU has One Nation winning, eight of them are rural. The only outer metro seat is Canning in Western Australia. Eleven of these seats are Coalition-held seats, plus Calare (which I have particularly strong doubts about).

Regardless of what preference estimates you apply to this list, it would undoubtedly cause havoc, particularly to the Coalition’s remaining MPs. Some Labor MPs may be worried, but the core of Labor’s majority would remain untouched by such a movement.

So let’s get to these preference estimates.

The problem is that we don’t have much of a sample of how preferences flow when One Nation makes the two-candidate-preferred count. In the last two decades, One Nation has only made the 2CP four times: once each in 2016 and 2019, and twice in 2025.

Those two seats in 2025 were Hunter and Maranoa, won respectively by Labor and the LNP. So we have one example of a Labor vs One Nation contest, and one example of an LNP vs One Nation contest.

DemosAU have used the preference flows in these seats to calculate the 2CP, and that is what has produced twelve seats for One Nation.

I think this is a reasonable decision – after all, it’s the only data we have – but we should take it with an enormous pile of salt.

It’s particularly problematic when it comes to calculating the general ‘others’ vote. In Hunter, One Nation gained a strong flow of preferences from Trumpet of Patriots (75%), Family First (69%) and the Shooters (63%), but more than half of preferences from Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice flowed to Labor.

Yet in Maranoa, every single party in the ‘others’ category was from the far right – People First, Libertarian, Family First and Trumpet of Patriots. While this is not that surprising in seats where One Nation is strong, I assume there will be some left-leaning voters in that ‘others’ group.

If I dial down the preference flow to One Nation vs LNP from ‘others’ from 67.7% to 55%, the Coalition regains the lead in three seats: Lyne, Groom and Riverina.

I also think we should put aside the result for the seat of Calare – I think DemosAU is probably understating Andrew Gee’s share of the ‘others’ vote and his share of preferences against One Nation, but none of that is based on much in the way of verifiable facts.

So with those four seats not in the One Nation column, this leaves One Nation winning eight seats. Which is still a lot!

The other thing to note is that all eight of these One Nation wins are in a 2CP contest against Labor, with the Coalition dropping into third place. These eight seats are Canning, Capricornia, Flynn, Grey, Hinkler, Parkes, Wide Bay and Wright. They are all now held by the Coalition, but in all eight the MRP has the Coalition dropping into third.

It has become obvious for a while now that it is easier for the Greens to win a seat where Labor falls into third place and they benefit from Labor preferences. It is much more difficult for the Greens to win against Labor when Liberal preferences favour Labor. This explains why the Greens won Ryan, Brisbane and Griffith in 2022, and also explains their loss of Brisbane and Griffith in 2025. If One Nation begin making the 2CP more regularly, they are far more likely to win when the Coalition drops into third place, and Coalition preferences elect One Nation over Labor.

I should also note that the Greens lose Ryan in this MRP, not because the Greens vote drops much, but because the LNP drops and Labor gains ground.

There is clearly a lot of volatility in the electoral system, although it it mostly concentrated on the right – this MRP shows Labor winning almost two thirds of seats, with the more progressive and urban parts of the country largely continuing as they are while the rural and right-wing parts descend into a fierce Coalition-One Nation contest. Our electoral system is not designed to represent these parties fairly, and it can produce large seat changes on relatively small shifts in support.

If polls continue to report similar numbers as we approach the next election, there will be a lot we won’t know about who will win seats. It certainly won’t be boring.

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