Senator Price’s Senate votes slump as critics call out her electability

The attack dogs are barking after an NT Senator defected. Read who’s biting and watch our exclusive video.

Flip-flopping CLP Senator Jacinta Price’s popularity slumped across the Territory at last weekend’s general election compared to her results in 2022.

Senator Price held her Senate position on Saturday, but the anti-Voice campaigner polled substantially worse in the Territory than she did at the previous federal poll.

She has angered National Party and CLP colleagues by announcing on Thursday she would switch her parliamentary allegiance to the Liberal Party, the Nationals coalition colleague.

At last weekend’s election, key Central Australian polling booths in particular showed Senator Price’s share of the Senate vote fell dramatically.

At Alice Springs booth the CLP, with Senator Price as its number one candidate, received 267 Senate votes on Saturday compared to 416 in 2022. Her share of the total Senate vote on Saturday was 25.48 per cent in 2025 compared with 31.71 in 2022.

NT Senator Jacinta Price. Picture: Gera Kazakov

At the last election her opponent, Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy polled 27.29 per cent of the Senate vote compared to Senator Price’s 31.71 per cent. This result flipped last Saturday with Senator McCarthy 31.87 per cent of the vote to Senator Price’s 25.48 per cent.

At nearby Braitling booth Senator Price polled 234 votes this year compared with 279 in 2022 and at Larrapinta she polled 126 votes this year compared to 249 votes in 2022.

At the Tennant Creek booth in 2022 Senator Price polled 429 votes – or 39.8 per cent of the vote – compared to just 237 votes or 27.65 of the share last weekend.

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan lined up Senator Price, pointing to an 11 per cent drop in electorate support for his former colleague in Alice Springs.

“Jacinta’s done enormous damage to her reputation,” Senator Canavan said.

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Dylan Robinson.

“I don’t know how you can go the people one week and say I’m going to represent this party in the nation’s parliament and then, the very next week, turn around and say ‘actually I’ve changed my mind and I’m going to go to a different side.

“It’s like changing sides on the football field once the whistle has blown and its not the sort of behaviour Australians appreciate.

“Some questions have to be asked here. How come the CLP went backwards 11 per cent in jacinta’s home town of Alice Springs with all of the crime that’s there? If Jacinta can’t win Alice Springs, how is she going to win over Australia?”

The NT News understands that senior Country Liberal Party management, while bitterly disappointed at the lack of consultation around Senator Price’s defection, will not take the matter further.

CLP Solomon candidate Lisa Bayliss. Picture: Supplied.

In Solomon, the margin between Labor’s Luke Gosling and the CLP’s Lisa Bayliss has narrowed after the Australian Electoral Commission rectified an administrative area that incorrectly attributed 500 votes intended for the CLP to Labor.

Australian Electoral Commission NT manager Geoff Bloom said a “transposition error” was identified on the result slips where two-candidate preferred voting numbers for Gosling and Bayliss were placed in the wrong boxes.

“Everybody missed it,” Mr Bloom said. “When you correct that transposition error which everybody missed including party workers on both sides, the 500-odd becomes twice that number in terms of the total TCP.

The amended figures increased the CLP’s two-candidate preferred swing from about 6 per cent on Wednesday to 7.31 per cent today and narrowed Mr Gosling’s share of the vote from 52 per cent to 51.09 per cent.

The AEC said Ms Bayliss trailed Mr Gosling by 1242 votes with approximately 3500 remaining.

Originally published as Senator Price’s Senate votes slump as critics call out her electability