Revealed: How leadership coup has changed Labor’s electoral fortunes

The Labor Party’s decision to move against Jacinta Allan and install Ben Carroll as Victorian premier has failed to deliver a bounce in the polls, with the government’s primary support continuing to slip in the lead-up to the November state election.

A Resolve Political Monitor survey of voting intentions conducted two weeks after the leadership spill shows the Jess Wilson-led opposition in a strong electoral position. Indicative preference flows from One Nation and Labor voters are likely to deliver the Coalition a swag of seats across Melbourne’s eastern and south-eastern suburbs and in regional areas.

Labor’s primary support dropped 2 points to 25 per cent, which is the government’s worst result since its polling nadir in the lead-up to last year’s federal election. Although Carroll is significantly more popular than Allan, only 20 per cent of respondents nominated the new Labor leader as their preferred premier, a figure 4 points lower than Allan scored in her final survey as premier .

Primary support for the Coalition remains unchanged at 27 per cent – a mark 7.4 points below what the Liberal and National parties secured in their 2022 election loss. While Resolve does not publish a two-party preferred figure, a heavily skewed flow of preferences means the Coalition has opened a nominative 53-47 gap over Labor.

Pauline Hanson’s campaign launch in Melbourne for Victorian party leader Warren Pickering and their upper house candidates did little to lift support for One Nation, which improved its primary vote by 1 point to 23 per cent.

All movements in primary support were within the poll’s 3 per cent margin for error.

“The change to Ben Carroll has done nothing to boost the stocks of Labor so far, and we would have expected that by now,” Resolve founder Jim Reed said. “This really will be an uphill battle for Labor.”

A senior Labor figure was sanguine about the result, saying the party never expected Carroll to enjoy a political honeymoon. “The best we could have hoped for is people willing to listen to us again,” they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail internal matters.

A worrying note for the Coalition is a 17 per cent drop in support for Wilson as preferred premier from last month’s survey. Some of the opposition leader’s previous support shifted to Pickering’s column, and the number of voters undecided on their preferred premier increased from 33 per cent to 43 per cent.

Wilson’s net approval rating firmed to 18, which is equal to her best result since becoming Liberal leader. It coincides with the opposition’s shift to more positive campaigning on cost of living and community safety issues.

For Victoria’s Liberal and National parties, which have together spent 23 of the past 27 years in opposition, the most encouraging figures in the survey are the indicative flow of preferences.

Unlike opinion polls, which make assumptions about preference distributions based on past elections, Resolve asks its respondents to indicate their top five primary voting preferences.