Ripon – Victoria 2026

Was told that at least 8 people have come out of the woodwork seeking Liberal preselection in this seat, only way Haylett holds is if she defects to the crossbench IMO, Nats may also consider running here

I think the Nats would be fabourites here.

Id put my money on Nats gain unless Louise staley recontests

@dragons agreed the only way Libs are a chance is if Stanley reconnects otherwise nats should win here

I’m not sure the Nats have much in the way of local branches or even a candidate in mind yet though?

There was a media article a while ago about the Nats running Jo Armstrong, she’s apparently their state party president but a neville nobody in the context of the electorate. Can’t see her setting the world on fire or achieving much.

Hmm, she’s based in Ballarat I think – potentially a better fit for Eureka

If these farmers are from Ripon. Labor are screwed

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CFy4x8P3d/

These farmers (sic) are the Victorian National Party and they are protesting against farmers receiving income from hosting energy infrastructure on their properties.
Interesting, the tractor driving senator lives in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Another examples of the Nationals driving themselves to extinction.

Labor certainly faces challenges here that they dont in Pakenham or the Narre Warrens. However, in Ripon Labor does well in the townships while Libs in rural areas.

Either way based on the scenes in Ballarat. Labor is probably gon a lose Ripon. Libs might do well in Wendouree as well

@ John
As i mentioned Wendouree before to you is entirely urban no farms so transmission lines, Emergency service leavy are not relevant. I have always said Eureka is a seat to watch.

Still Ballarat swung to the libs in a year when the libs fell over themselves federally.
Eureka should be close. Libs will need it to form government. The redistribution will probably lose golden Plains and gain the rest of Moorabool from melton

Yes i think a good chance of Eureka being picked up. However, no redistibution in 2026. Wendouree needs an 11% swing i think Libs will get 4% in Wendoree and 6-8% in Eureka.

With serious effort and decent candidates all of Ripon, Eureka and Bendigo East are winnable – even with the Premier holding the latter. It is not just power lines but the fire services levy and road conditions major issues in regional Victoria. It could be the inverse of 1999 coming.

Agreed the libs will need Ripon and Eureka to win government. Bendigo East not so much as it’s one of the bonus seats that only the right candidate would get up in. There is a big social divide in Bendigo and most of the less well off vote tends to solidify behind Labor

Local media reporting that Ararat Mayor (and VIC Nats party president) Jo Armstrong is almost certain to nominate as Nats candidate, Libs have begun pre-selection with 5 potential nominees.

Could become a question of which Coalition party makes the 2PP – Nats will have some territory to defend but is any of it really under threat now that INDs have been toppled in Shep and Mildura. Can imagine they might throw a fair bit at this seat. Expect the rural towns to the north and west in this seat to swing substantially to the Coalition and it becomes a question of how much Labor can hold the fort in the friendlier towns, (Creswick, Sythesdale, Clunes etc) the growth areas around Lucas in Ballarat’s West and the larger towns of Ararat and Maryborough.

The nats would be better in here. Te seat doesn’t generally swing in a 2pp. However there is some uproar against the Allen government in this area so it could be a once in a generation swing. We’ve seen what can happen when the nats throw resources a seat. Not only in Bendigo. But at the last state election they outpermed the libs and took 2 seats from Independents. Unlike labor and the libs they apcan really focus there efforts. On a particular seat rather then having to spread their resources across every seat. Nats also provide an option for people who dont want labor but can’t bring themselves to vote liberal.

This is Liberal/National must win if they want to have any chance of governing in the future.

A lot of the population in this seat has a connection to Ballarat either at the Hepburn end or in the growth areas around Lucas – making the Liberals a natural choice for many conservative voters. Armstrong could probably flip Ararat booths from Labor and run up the score in the southern Mallee areas but I’m not sure I’d say out of hand this is prime Nats territory, although John mentions they can target their campaigns better they could also find themselves battling for Bendigo East and Benambra too and I doubt the Liberals will be willing to go away quietly.

This territory is more favourable for the nats then Benambra. As an Benambra constituent I can guarantee you they will not win it unless they can produce a superstar candidate or the liberal candidate is a dud. Bendigo East they can easily produce Lathlean who based on federal results would win. The nats will likely not have to defend any seats against Independent challengers at this stage. And morwell is probably in their court. This means they can dump all their resources here and in Bendigo. The libs on the other hand contest all the other non nat seats and will likely have teal challengers somewhere as well as having to contend with Labor in the seats they hope to gain and to retain in the metropolitan areas. Without incumbency or a familiar member the libs will likely struggle to overcome the history of this seat. Nats can easily win the rural and regional areas and some people are more open to nats member then they are to a liberal. Obviously the libs will want to win it but at the end of the day as long your team wins it shouldn’t matter if it’s you or your teammate that does. It just like in motor racing sometimes you personally have to lose so your team can win.

Ripen is the area roughly between Bendigo and Ballarat….not including the 4 seats based in those cities.
A personal vote is so important here and the one most poised to win a personal vote is the alp mp.
Look at the results this area does not swing dramatically within 1.5% normally
Also both libs and nats will contest this seat and preferences will leak.

Mick that swing is only in a alp v lib contest a nat v alp would probably be tighter. Lib ->nat preferences generally flow stronger and the nats can appeal to parts of the alp base. Especially in the Ararat area. Also this area is not between bendigo and Ballarat that’s more bendigo west. This is the parts west of those cities. Personal vote is probably not what happens here more like local factors. Things like the emergency services Levy would have an effect here.

Agree John, most recent elections (including the WA one earlier this year) have shown swings against Labor tend to be higher in the regional and rural seats. As a result, Ripon is likely to be one of the first seats to be lost in 2026.

@yoh the same happened in qld. Also in WA labor will probably lose all it’s regional holdings except Kimberley at the next election. Though Bunbury will probably be lineball.

Ripon has a history of not swinging and has a lot of tree changers so it can always be Bundaberg I think Nats will do better than Libs but there are local issues such as transmission lines and emergency services levy

@Nimalan I think the difference between this and Bundaberg though is Bundaberg is an entirely urban seat. It would be like Wendouree which is entirely in Ballarat (except Wendouree is a safe Labor seat and Bundaberg is a marginal one).

@ Nether Portal
I often refer to a seat that we all expect to fall in a bad election for a party because it does not as a Bundaberg. Last year we all thought Bundaberg will fall but it had a swing the opposite to the state. The expectation last time was that Regional Swing to LNP but not much in Brisbane but Bundaberg defied that logic. If any seat can defy logic it can be Ripon. I still think Coalition will likely win Ripon but i am not willing to put my house on it.

@Nimalan I’m willing to bet Bundaberg will notionally flip after redistribution

I suspect some of Labor’s investments here in reinstating rail to Maryborough and Ararat as well as the growth of the Lucas and Delacombe corridors in western Ballarat and the tree-changers moving into the Hepburn area have helped them retain it. But the rural/city divide has strengthened across this term with the ESVL, transmission line laws and the poor state of major roads such as the western hwy – which desperately needs duplicating to Stawell for safety reasons as much as any.

The local MP is decent and might help especially in her home base of Maryborough, Nats can potentially do well in Ararat where the presumptive candidate is mayor and also the southern Mallee/northern goldfields towns but this seat is generally used to voting Liberal rather than Nats so there could be some vote splitting that won’t help the Libs if they come 2nd. Going to be a tough pre-selection for them as the general expectation is that they’ll flip the seat

If the nats can flip Ararat then it’s in their court likely.

I don’t think the bullishness for the Coalition in these comments is very justified. The seat’s patterns show that there can be a considerable personal vote for the incumbent. Joe Helper in 2010 held the seat for Labor against a big statewide Liberal swing, then when he retired over the next couple of elections Louise Staley kept it in Liberal hands against Labor swings. Now the 2nd term Labor MP should have a personal vote and if they are effective then they should have a good chance of holding.

Given from what I’ve read from other Tallyroom commentators have said there are limited resources for the Liberals here so it’s likely that the Nationals will be likely main contender here. Regardless this is a must win seat so if the Liberals can’t win here then the Nationals will need to pick up the slack here.

IMO I don’t think Martha Haylett should be written off here.. entirely.

From what I’ve seen here, she appears pretty popular in the electorate along the same lines as Joe Helper as @Adda has mentioned. Personal votes can be pretty potent especially in the rural electorates which are very vast, so having a good name brand can be important. Add to that, the demographic changes with tree changers (I assume?) around Smythesdale and Creswick, and urban growth in Lucas will likely benefit Labor in the long-term.

But at the same time, Jacinta Allan ironically seems to be stuffing up pretty badly in the regions with poor roads, power lines, ESVL, etc. despite representing a rural seat. The Nationals got a swing to them in Mallee this year in the federal election, and their performance in Bendigo suggests that a strong, pragmatic campaign can shift the margins against well-liked or inoffensive MPs. Add to the fact the polls appear dire in the regions for Labor for the aforementioned reasons and the rise in polling for the Coalition.

I’d say the Nationals are a smokey to win here, but depends heavily on candidate quality. If someone like Jo Armstrong or someone notable from Ararat/Maryborough is preselected they have a really good shot, but otherwise the Liberals would likely to win here, though Haylett should not be counted out whatsoever.

Martha is seen as a good egg mostly, but public perception seems to be (at least in the more rural parts) that she is pretty ineffective at actually influencing government policy, and the government as mentioned have done a lot to piss off rural communities.

Yes the electorate has had a history of fairly stable voting patterns and most of the change within it has been growth in the more Labor friendly parts, but that change doesn’t appear to be accelerating a great deal as it did from 2018-2022 with Covid tree-changers etc. The western hwy from Ararat to Ballarat is a shambles, and the desperately needed duplication to towards Stawell remains incomplete despite a number of fatal accidents along the route. The Ballarat link rd project seems to have stalled out despite ongoing growth in the Delacombe and Lucas area. The spectre of health service amalgamations amidst the ‘local health services’ plan wasn’t received well locally and Maryborough recently had to fight like hell to keep their local VicRoads centre.

The feeling of neglect out here is real, people thinking the local member is alright won’t offset that

Jo Armstrong is all but set to be the Nats candidate too – Ararat council have already named her replacement as Mayor to free her up to campaign, I’d say there’s some pretty decent scope for her to poll well, she’s quite moderate, obviously well known at the western end of the seat and there is a decent little SFF vote in this seat which might help bump the Nats up a little, not even sure if they’ll re-contest.

Maxim,
Thanks for the update on the coalition woes.
Sounds like Martha will be comfortably reelected.

National gain no doubt about it. The swing against Labor will be above average in Rural and provincial areas. Especially become the National candidate is the frontrunner. A National candidate can pick up Labor voters better than a liberal candidate can especially in working class towns like Maryborough.

i dont think the libs will win this. this seat has a history of not swinging even when the state gets caught in a landslide. the biggest mover of this seat is the redistributions. that said that minor movement is only in a 2pp contest nats can dump resources into indiviudual seats when they arent under threat in their own seats as most of their seats are considered safe unless a ind is challenging. labor and libs cant hope to match this. weve seen it happen federally.

Might be better for Libs to run dead and let the Nats win here. Saves them resources that they can put into Eastern suburbs seats. Same goes for Bendigo seats. They have no chance there either.

im sure the libs will give it a go Ripon is not out of the realm of possibility for them. its not like the libs to give up on a winnable seat. Bendigo East probably is unless they can find a superstar candidate. no ones winning West off Labor.

Liberals should definitely run in Ripon because parts of the seat are not natural Nats territory, but I agree they should run relatively dead to let the Nats make the 2CP.

The Bendigo seats they should definitely leave for the Nats. I agree Bendigo West is out of reach but Bendigo East is under serious threat from a Nats challenge (not so much a LIB challenge).

If they have a good night it could end up being a really good haul for the Nats, but for it to really work they’ll need to work it out behind closed doors with the Liberals before they go trying to poach seats like Benambra etc

i can all but assure you unless the libs select a lackluster candidate they arent winning Benambra

Yes but it causes bad blood if they run hard etc

I can assure you we get along just fine. We hand out each other’s htv cards. Its like a tag team. We run as one and never try and cut each off at the knees.

I can assure you we get along just fine. We hand out each other’s htv cards. Its like a tag team. We run as one and never try and cut each off at the knees. We run together not against each other.

@John

Posters here (and in other threads) are talking about a Coalition strategy where the Liberals give up potentially winnable seats to the Nats in order to be able to use their resources to win back metro seats.

If the Nats looked to pick off a rural Liberal seat yes the vols will be chummy on the booths but it hardly encourages a cohesive strategy that targets Labor most effectively rather than has the coalition partners squabbling over safe 2PP seats

The liberals will not just lie down and let them have a seat but they aren’t going to get into a public brawl over it either.

Again not the point, if the Liberals and Nats are spending resources trying to win Benambra and Ripon (two seats they are almost certainly winning to form government) then thats 2 sets of resources wasted on a non-Labor opponent