Sturt – Australia 2025

Must mention I am aware that the by-election of state seat of Black isn’t covered by this electorate I am referring to state Labor apparent popularity and how the state Liberals seems to keep shooting themselves in the foot.

Yes Spacefish they must target it as a potential gain. Also Sturt is a Tealish seat where Dutton will not be popular. It is not a mortgage belt seat or a white working class seat where Dutton will do best.

@SpaceFish possibly a tossup, while Labor have the edge because of Dutton being Dutton and also he was the one who knifed Turnbull and started half of the turmoil, plus this is a richer seat so COL will mean less, but I certainly won’t rule out a Liberal hold given Labor is on the nose federally.

What puts this seat as more favourable for Labor is that any movements in Greens vote that goes up delivers the seat to the ALP due to preferences and the fact that the margin is less than 1%, unless if the Liberal primary vote increases by 10% which won’t happen. Labor and Greens have been campaigning already in the electorate and there’s a gradual shift to the left in this electorate particularly in the southern end which is emerging from conservative old money to a more progressive left-wing cohort with younger people moving in.

As someone who lives in here I wouldn’t mind seeing James Stevens lose his seat to Labor. As a supposed Moderate he’s not broken away from party positions on extreme political positions, and given that the state Liberals are a shambles and he’s part of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if this seat flips next election.

Also as Nether Portal mentioned, this seat is not mortgage belt heavy or working class (apart from the north but that is very CALD and the cohort is very anti-Liberal as there’s a decent Muslim population up in Gilles Plains), but it’s progressive inner-city left meets affluent money. Then you have Malinauskas and his government being very popular which could have some halo effect on the federal vote. We’ll have to wait and see.

Sorry I was meant to say @Nimalan.

https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in/2024/12/17/teal-independent-joins-crowded-race-for-sturt

A teal will be running here in Sturt. This will prove to be a waste of money for Climate 200 and prevent Labor from winning this seat (though they probably weren’t in the running to begin with). It’ll be the same dynamic as in Hawthorn 2022 where the teal candidate helped return a Liberal member by causing leakage to Labor.

A teal ran in Boothby and it was a flop

@Douglas potentially yes this could actually help the Liberals since teals rely on tactical voting.

@nimalan Jo Dyer and Dr Cooper are two very different independents. Dyer was labor lite – even down to her campaign colour, and didn’t really know what she stood for, just drew votes away from Miller-Frost. No doubt if a teal independent ran in Sturt in 22 they would’ve won. I suspect time won’t be on Dr Cooper’s side as the major parties + greens have that advantage

I have a feeling the teal movement won’t be as successful this election cycle and will probably die down. I personally feel that the seats that the teals won other then Bradfield or Ryan I don’t see anything outside of that. A side note I don’t expect them to cut through in Ryan at all now.

State does not equal federal but there is a problem in that the state liberals have lost
2 seats in by-elections. This is unheard of.

State seats of Hartley and Coles fall within this seat and on state figures as both marginal lib.
This may suggest the momentum is with
Labor…. never the less this will be a toss up

@Mick happened to NSW Labor in 2008 (Ryde) and 2010 (Penrith). There were record swings to the Liberals in those seats and Labor went on to lose in a landslide that was the worst ever defeat of a sitting government in the state’s history in 2011. Those seats are now key marginal seats (Penrith is a marginal Labor seat and Ryde is an ultra-marginal Liberal seat).

Mistake
Should be
Hartley and Morialta

I am curious to see what this seat would be like if the Centre Alliance ran again with a serious campaign. I think they could make a big dent in the Liberal vote.

Mainly the 2016 CA/NXT.

@James they would likely pick up much of the small-l-liberal vote and could result in Labor winning from preference leakage given that CA will preference Labor over Dutton’s Liberals:

The Greens candidate, same as 2022 & Dunstan by-election, has been working this seat for months, if not years. With a teal now on the field, with over 200+ volunteers, would this combined not be enough to get the ALP over the line this time…

Labor only received a 0.8% FP swing last election, the 2PP swing of 6.4% to the ALP is practically entirely attributable to the Greens.

I’m keen to hear people’s thought’s.

Also note that the ALP candidate is a Local Councillor, where as in 2022 it was a dummy FEC candidate

Burwood and Benalla did the same thing.I think in 1999.Think it was 2010 before the libs won in Vic again.

Predicting a Liberal victory but Greens in the 2CP

Stretching the point a bit 1990 fed election Labor lost 10 seats because of state matters. In 1992 Labor lost 1992 state election. So it is quite possible that state matters may poison a federal vote

@vandon this made me think of Kooyong in 2019 greens make the 2cp because of more young voters and renters in the electorate but it would take a teal to actually take the seat away from the libs

Mick
Queensland in 1996 and definitely WA in 2022 were influenced by state issues.

I live in this seat and I think there’s a really good chance this seat flips red, even if Labor is naturally playing defensive everywhere else. The Labor candidate’s been around for a long time campaigning and reaching out into the community along with state local members who are popular in their own right. In addition Labor in SA is nowhere near on the nose as the East Coast and the margin is less than 1% so I think it could flip.

Unlike seats like Perth or Macnamara or Richmond the natural Greens influence in this seat is much weaker than the former three. The western side near the city and Norwood is probably their best bet but the Greens will do worse in the deep blue south and the working class north (Gilles Plains, Holden Hill etc) which goes hard for Labor federally.

@Tommo 9, Thanks, this is an interesting perspective.

Cheers @tommo9

im saying LIB retain only on the grounds the lib vote should recover from its 2022 low point state politics shouldnt be a thing here.

I feel a bit sceptical about this seat flipping red.

The outside view is that this seat has a 0% base rate of returning anyone other than a Liberal.

I also don’t see evidence of systemic demographic shifts – the Liberal vote has not been trending down over time and maintains a consistent premium of about 5 points above the state average vote.

So for this seat to flip you’d need an unprecedented decrease in the Liberal vote and increase in the Labor 2PP at the same time as the Labor vote is tanking federally and the Coalition vote is going up. It’s hard to see how candidate factors could be enough to achieve this.

Sa polling 59/41 alp state level
Seat of opp leader + Morialta will flip
On those figures.
So Sturt a chance

Ah, so state based results/local polling is the metric – now do Menzies and Deakin…

No
Easy Menzies and Deakin would be alp
Held.
60/40 @ state level could have an impact
Suspect about 10 liberals left on state figures.
Troubles at state level vic are the cause of labor’s so called malaise….like 1990 federal.. some here are saying state Labor govt in Vic will lead to losses in Vic @ federal level.
This seat Sturt has a 0.5% lib margin based on 2022. I am just saying it is a possible alp gain.

@mick both this and boothby are in play in my opinion. however state politics doesnt usually effect federal voting unless there is a serious voter backlash as in vic most people would agree the sa state liberals are in the same position the vic liberals were about 2-3 years ago. CoL will be the central ssue here.

@maxim only when it benefits labor apparently.

State Labor seem to still be fairing extremely well, while I don’t think it automatically translates that federal Labor will to well I think Labor chances of picking up Sturt are still high even if there are large swing against the government in the rest of the country.

@SpaceFish Agreed. I don’t think a lot of people on here, who I assume aren’t from SA, understand that in SA the Labor brand is nowhere near being on the nose as they are in some of the Eastern states. In fact, state Labor is still mega popular and Federal Labor isn’t disliked here generally either. Actually most people I’ve come across are either fans or tolerant of Albanese generally, but can’t stand Dutton even if they’re not getting much out of Federal Labor.

People also forget that this is the first time in nearly 20 years that Sturt has become an ultra-marginal seat, and the demographical changes here means the electorate isn’t the same as it was during the Christopher Pyne days. It’s trending younger and more progressive in the usually blue-ribbon parts. In addition the Labor and Green candidates have both been out and about campaigning daily and chatting with the community. Meanwhile we have the incumbent James Stevens recently going on a campaign about Linear Park and advocating for a Truro bypass to get the trucks off Portrush Road (yeah good luck with that). It’s definitely in play in this election and realistically it would only take a small change in primary votes (be it Labor/Greens going up or Liberals coming down) that would hand the seat to Labor.

Also people need to stop with the thinking that a swing on 2PP nationally means all seats will be swinging in that way. If that was the case last time Labor would end up with 80-90 seats and in clear majority. The swings are never uniform and never will be, particularly when you have states like WA and SA whose Labor brands are still very strong and could aid Federal Labor in terms of halo effects.

Tommo technically Labor ended up with about 84 seats on 2pp but on 2cp they only managed 77. Greens won 4 plus sharkie Wilkie and Dai Le

2pp was a brilliant concept when introduced. But then lnp and labor got 85 to 90% of the primary vote.
Now this is no more lib 38 alp 32 ..in 2022
This only 70% so 30% went elsewhere .
To win as a non major you need 25% and preferences of one of the majors.
This is exactly what happened in fowler 2022.
The 3cp may be more useful now?

Libs have improved 1% in safe in latest as federal poll based on federeal results from 2022

If there’s only been a 1% swing to the Libs in SA then Labor could win this. The swing could be bigger in Kingston, Spence, Hindmarsh, Makin and less, or a swing to Labor in Adelaide, Boothby and here.

I reckon the mortgage belt seats and outer suburbs (most of them are in safe Labor seats) will be the most swingy but in the Liberals’ direction.

A big reason why Malinauskas and state Labor are popular is because the state opposition have been in shambles all this term.

A popular premier could translate to a federal swing to the premier’s party like in WA at the 2022 federal election. However, it’s possible that the state result and federal result go in opposite directions. Besides, federal Labor was in opposition at the 2022 election and capitalised on the anti-Morrison factor and the federal Covid response in WA.

What’s the vibe here at the moment? Are we expecting LIB retain or ALP/GRN/IND gain?

@James (irelxnd) I think there’s a good chance Labor flips this and lock the Liberals out of metro Adelaide this election. The Labor candidate is quite good and has been campaigning since last year on a range of issues in the electorate. James Stevens on the other hand has been trying to fight this using a campaign of ‘Save Linear Park’ and ‘Get the Trucks off Portrush Road by building a bypass’ (which is nothing but a thought bubble logistically), which seems to be a weird hill to die on but we’ll see how the campaign unfolds.

@tommo9 im not about to speculate about this or Boothby as i dont have as much knowledge regarding SA as i do about pretty much every other part of australia. state results would hand this to labor but the federal libs arent as bad as the state libs in SA. they mamged to hold the seat in labor slide to power in a very bad year for the Libs. This could flip it might not, although the libs seem to think tey can hold this and win boothby for what thats worth.

I think if Labor runs a good campaign, perhaps utilising Peter Malinauskas, then they have a good chance. These aren’t exactly Liberal target areas at the moment

This is labor’s best chance to win an extra seat