Pascoe Vale – Victoria 2026

The Greens vote seems to fall off a cliff in the north western part of the electorate, as long as that holds for Labor they should be able to hold.

@ SpaceFish
This electorate has an East-West side rather than North-South. Pascoe Vale/Oak Park are more Oakleigh/Huntingdale etc middle class suburban areas. A lot of nuclear familes and Pragmatic voters. There is a decent Liberal vote. These areas saved Khalil in wills

*East/West divide

I think Pascoe Vale, Preston and Northcote will all remain with Labor this time. Of the 4 seats the Greens came close in last time, Footscray is the only one that I think they might pick up.

Similarly to Northcote, the Greens have recycled their 2022 candidate, Angelica Panopoulos to run for Pascoe Vale. They’re certainly getting in early.

Trent it will depend on how badly labor do and who the liberals preference. They would do best to preference against labor in these 4 seats just to waste their resources defending them unless labor are willing to offer something in return

The Liberals may well end up doing the “Put Labor Last” thing again, to try claw at Labor’s majority.

If they do, the Greens hold their three current seats and most likely add Footscray and Northcote to the list (as well as Prahran but that’s separate to this).

Froma tactical perspective as John said it forces Labor to waste resouces. Last time they spent more resources on Northcote than any other seat. This may have prevented them from winning Polwarth or Croydon. However, it angers Liberal’s base and since October 7th the Greens are hated by the Liberals based more than in November 2022. Being Pro-Israel is the only thing the Liberals agree on.

Nimalan as I previously stated rather then do it statewide do it in these specific seats or just run a vote against the incumbents. So preference greens in labor held seats seats and labor in greens held seats then just greens last in coalition held seats or seats they won’t drop out of the 2pp. This also makes the greens waste their resources and the libs can at least be competitive in prahran

@ John
It does forces Resouces to be wasted.
Labor will always offer to preference Coalition over ONP so they do get something in return. If Labor preferenced ONP in the 2017 state election it would have forced LNP to waste resouces but problem is that it angers Labor voter base.
Also Labor can offer to preference Coalition over DLP/Family First/ONP in the Upper house in return as well.

Nimalan, I was thinking Labor could use upper house preferences as a bargaining chip to get Liberal preferences. Labor could preference Coalition ahead of minor right-wing parties.

The Coalition recommending preferencing of Greens ahead of Labor only works when the Coalition reaches 3rd in the 3CP or after preferences. Only then do the Coalition voters’ preferences get distributed. The Coalition gets 3rd place in maybe 10 inner-city seats at most.

The effect of the Liberals’ preferencing decision may have less of an effect when the Liberal primary vote declines. It will also have less of an effect when the primary vote of minor right-wing parties (FF, DLP, ONP etc.) increases. This is because those parties are socially conservative and put the Greens last and Labor is seen as the lesser of the two evils.

Correct Votante that is a possible bargaining chip they can offer. Labor will always preference a Centrist like Teals over Libs. Just like Libs will preference a centrist like Dai Le over Labor.
Labor probably accepts that Libs will always preference ONP over Labor now which they did not do in 1998. Libs may like Labor to preference Libs over Greens in LIB V GRN contest like Ryan. However, i dont know if many Labor voters will like that except Jewish Labor voters, Religious Labor voters or Labor voters who work in certain primary industries like Coal, Gas and Logging (the latter dont exist in seats which can theoritically be a GRN V LIB)

@nimalan but onp aren’t a threat in Vic this is a state by state thing. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”

Besides upper house preferences are trade for upper house preferences. And neither sides preferences will ever make it that far in the upper house anyway. If labor want lower house preferences they have to give something in return labor do it because if they preference onp over the libs the greens will seize on it. It doesn’t work the other way.

They can preference the Libs over Nats but if you feel so passionately then just preference Greens. Labor will then need to make a tactical decision whether to sandbag Eureka/Sunbury/Box Hill etc or Northote, Pascoe Vale etc.
Last time Labor wasted a lot of resources to hold Northcote which is probably why they did not win Croydon etc as they could not afford to.
However, in 2010 State election is the best election in Victoria this century they preferenced Greens below Labor and they own.

Yes but libs and nats don’t generally contest the same seats unless there is no sitting member. And even so there are no seats that currently end up in a lib v nat contest for those preferences to matter.

And that is precisely the point in preferring the greens in those select seats because of that outcome. The phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” comes to mind. Labor does this to teals for the exact same reason.

@ John
The difference is that the Teals are more Centre and somewhere in betwene Labor/Libs on political spectrum like Dai Le is. That is why it makes sense for Libs to preference Dai Le. On a matter of principle/values it does not make sense to preference Greens over Labor as they are further left than Labor. To force Labor to waste resources it does.
So the question is will be the Libs follow their moral standing or just to waste resources.
So i would not compare Liberal preferencing Greens to Labor preferencing Teals. I would compare Labor preferencing Teals to Liberals preferencing Dai Le.

True however as we saw at the state wa election the libs were willing to preference labor over hulett to gain labor preferences in nat v lib seats. Labor might be compelled to help out the libs in a similar situation if it were to face a similar threat. Thought there aren’t any seats that they will any challenge at the moment against a teal but that may change. And the libs don’t currently have any threat to their right in preferencing the greens it’s purely a tactical decision to divert labors resources.

Nimalan the only problem with that is libs and nats don’t contest the same seat unless it’s a seat without a sitting member.

The major parties direct preferences to centrist, independents before preferencing each other. It makes sense as they try to deny the other major party the seat.

Winnability is one factor but ideology is important. It’s why Labor generally don’t preference One Nation even in Coalition vs One Nation seats. This would cause controversy, angst and possibly even a backlash from Labor’s base.

I recall that during the federal election, the Coalition’s preference swap with One Nation turned off teal and moderate Liberals and multicultural communities. The Coalition’s HTV cards had One Nation second in many lower house seats and second for the senate in most states.

Votante anyway who was put off by that was probably voting teal anyway

@John: I agree that the Liberal Party will likely only recommend preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor in a handful of seats that ended up as Labor vs Greens contests. The Liberal Party won’t run a statewide “put Labor last” campaign because such a campaign will anger the Liberal base, especially Jewish voters. What’s more, whether the Liberals preference Labor ahead of the Greens won’t matter in seats where the Liberal party won’t fall out of 2CP or the Greens won’t make the 2CP. The Liberal Party will be best to only preference the Greens ahead of Labor in Labor-held seats that ended up as Labor vs Greens contests, and preference Labor ahead of the Greens in all other seats including Greens-held seats, all of which were Labor vs Greens contests in 2022. In this way the Liberals can force both Labor and the Greens to divert resources to sandbag their own seats that wouldn’t otherwise be under threat.

And it doesn’t matter if they put them 2nd or 3rd last ahead of labor and the greens. The same as labor preferencong the greens second. The only 2 seats where those preferences mattered was Hunter and Ryan.

Anthony is already out doorknocking in the electorate, saw him on a walk. Haven’t seen the Greens around yet, and they’re usually spam it on their socials when they are around, so I’m guessing they just haven’t started their campaigning yet – or they’re focused on shoring up Brunswick/Melbourne/Fitzroy etc after the massive swings in those areas towards Labor federally.

Like Preston, Northcote etc this seat will be a shoe on for Labor if the Liberals reverse their preference decision.

There is a decent Liberal vote in the West of the Seat which is why the Liberal preferences are important.

Oscar Yildiz, (Local Councillor and 2018 indie candidate in the seat) just posted a video on his Facebook which looks kinda like the beginnings of a campaign launch – would make it a 4-way race if he does jump in

Yıldız will be an interesting factor, while he has been anti-Labor I think at this point he’s even more anti-Greens particularly on council where his Independent alliance has been working with Labor against the Greens/Socialists — and fighting with Greens with them reporting each other for suspensions.

Last time Yıldız ran as an Independent (2018) he got 23.5% (~16.5% on current boundaries) of the vote with about half seemingly coming from Labor and the Liberals — this would take the Liberals out of the race imo and really hurt the Labor primary as they do rely on the older Greek/Italian/Turkish vote which Yıldız would capitalise, even if they do okay off of him with preferences.

Also it should be noted that Socialist Alliance, who campaigned here in 2022 will be running their Councilor Sue Bolton in Broadmeadows instead. So that 4.2% they got should go to VicSoc or to the Greens.

@ Vandon
I think these boundaries are much worse for Oscar Yildiz than in 2018 When it included Oak Park and did not go as Far South. This is more left wing than the 2018 version. There is an East/West divide in the seat with Pacscoe Vale itself being more middle class centrist while Coburg is increasingly a new Brunswick especially along Sydney Road. Oscar Yildiz is not Pro-Palestine so will not appeal to Muslim voters he is more of a Centrist.

@Nimalan
I agree, he’s most likely to get around 10-15% depending on if he gets some momentum on the pro small-business right ahead of the Liberals and or if he’s seen as a better protest vote than One Nation. The real question is whether he will take 5-10% from Labor which could end up helping the Greens. While council election turnout is lower and neither the Liberals nor PHON were running, Yıldız received 62.26% primary (against a Labor and a VicSocialists candidate) in the district of Pascoe Vale South (entirely within the state electorate) and that South was one of his weaker regions in the 2018 election.

The Greens will do very well in Coburg, “new Brunswick” is pretty spot on, it really is a question of how much Labor can keep up their support in the West and North.

@ Vandon
I agree Oscar Yildiz will do well among more right wing voters who may otherwise vote Libs/ONP or more Labor right supporters. The West of the seat is more suburban so i feel the suburb of Pascoe Vale & Pascoe Vale South are more like Oakleigh middle income family suburb rather than a trendy gentriifying suburb hence a stronger Liberal vote. I think Coburg being the “new Brunswick” is one of the reasons i think Peter Khalil is in strife in Wills as it gentifies it is increasing losing an Old Labor Socially conservative and religious demographic while that same demographic is likely to remain in Pascoe Vale.

Could become a very complicated count if this all bears out, Labor likely to lead on primary but behind them a jangled mess of

GRN
VICSOC
LIB
ON
And now Yildiz

Could become unclear who the final pairing will be and I can envision preferences flying about, question is will more diverse competition for the Labor vote from both the left and the right ultimately hinder whoever becomes their main opponent? Surely Labor’s vote couldn’t fall enough to push them out of the 2CP?

With Oscar Yildiz running, it can be safely assumed that the Libs will come 4th. This actually puts them in the box seat to determine who might make final three and then two. It is not inconceivable – but probably unlikely – that it could be a Greens vs Yildiz final two as Labor are unlikely to get many preference flows in the final two and three build up.

I assume Labor and Labor voters will preference Yildiz over the Greens and he would win. I am not that familiar with him, but in a seat like this the Greens are the opponent/enemy to Labor rather than an ally like they are in traditional contests or even three way ALP/LIB/GRN contests.

@Adam

I disagree honestly, Labor may preference Yıldız over the Greens but I think their voters would be more split 50/50 or 60/40 Yıldız/Green. There are still a decent amount of Labor voters who see themselves as progressive rather than centrist and remember Yıldız was involved with the anti-Labor, anti-lockdown “Victorians Party” in 2022. In a Yıldız vs Greens contest I’d lean towards the Greens, I don’t see the Labor Party falling to third though.

To be fair, given the facebook post he made, there is no mention of Pascoe Vale electorate or state politics at all. Confusing video that you’d assume would be a prelude to a state run but definitely not guaranteed