Massive Greens vote predicted in two seats
A Greens strategist predicts the party will come close to recording the highest primary vote ever for the party in Australia in these two Brisbane seats.
QLD Votes
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The Greens are on track to record 40-plus per cent of the primary vote in South Brisbane and the Indooroopilly-based seat of Maiwar, the party’s Queensland strategist, Max Chandler-Mather, says.
The party should clinch 39-43 per cent in South Brisbane and up to 42 per cent in Maiwar, based on field campaign data.
The highest ever recorded primary vote for the party at a state level in Australia was last year when Jamie Parker jagged 42.7 per cent in the inner-Sydney seat of Balmain and Jenny Leong secured 46 per cent in nearby Newtown.
Mr Chandler-Mather said their field campaign data methodology had been “uncannily accurate’’ in predicting the outcomes in The Gabba ward in the 2016 Council election, where Jonathan Sri became the party’s first councillor.
“We also got the Maiwar vote exactly right last time and the South Brisbane vote as well,’’ he said.
Michael Berkman’s victory in Maiwar shocked many election observers, none of whom had predicted the Greens could take the seat from the LNP.
Mr Chandler-Mather said he had re-checked his calculations early this afternoon with booth workers and the field campaign data predictions appeared to be coming true.
If correct, Mr Berkman would win Maiwar with a two party preferred vote of 54 to 57 per cent, he said, comfortably beating the LNP’s Lauren Day despite only a slight drop in the LNP primary vote.
“Labor’s vote is going to badly collapse and we will scrape that up,’’ Mr Chandler-Mather said.
“Labor could get as low as 19-20 per cent.’’
Ms Day, a high-profile former Channel 10 reporter who has run a well-organised, well-resourced and vigorous campaign, said her feel was that the LNP was doing well.
She said there was great energy in the air and expected a strong vote.
Mr Chandler-Mather said if the party’s data was accurate, the Greens’ Amy MacMahon would secure a whopping 60 per cent of the two party preferred vote, easily beating Labor incumbent Jackie Trad.
He said their methodology was very conservative.
It involved breaking down responses from doorknocking into seven categories: people who said they would definitely be voting for the Greens, people who said they would probably do so, voters who were split 50:50, people who were “oppositional’’ to the party and those who indicated they definitely would not vote for the Greens.
The methodology also took into account people who said they were “not interested in politics’’ or would not say what they intended to do.
Mr Chandler-Mather said they counted 100 per cent of people who indicated they would definitely vote Greens as locked-in voters.
But they counted only 50 per cent of those who said they “probably’’ would vote Greens as locked-in supporters.
All other categories were discounted.