Queensland Election 2017: LNP leader frontrunner, but...

TIM Nicholls has set a cracking pace, leaving Annastacia Palaszczuk in the dust, but he can’t pedal fast enough to escape Pauline Hanson.

LNP leader Tim Nicholls needs to dominate public discussion.

YOU can run, but you cannot hide.

Tim Nicholls has certainly been the frontrunner during the first week of the 2017 election campaign.

The LNP leader has set a cracking pace, announcing policies that will cut payroll tax, tackle crime and ensure a coal-fired power station is built in north Queensland, as well as invest in dams.

Meanwhile, Annastacia Palaszczuk cannot seem to find first gear.

The Premier’s promises so far have been commitments to do more of the same.

Queensland LNP leader Tim Nicholls drives a boat on the Peter Faust Dam in Proserpine yesterday. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP

However today’s Galaxy poll demonstrates why Nicholls so desperately needs to dominate the policy front and public discussion.

He needs that to be the subject of debate, not whether or not he would do a deal with One Nation.

However while Nicholls has pedalled furiously, it has not been enough to escape Pauline Hanson’s grasp.

One Nation has bounded out of the block with 18 per cent of the primary vote.

That is short of the historic 22.7 per cent result of 1998 when it won 11 seats.

However the clustering of One Nation’s support in specific regions, in concert with new compulsory preferencing rules, could slingshot Hanson’s candidates to first over the finishing line in seats where the LNP runs third.

Steven Wardill’s election playlist:

That could occur in a string of regional LNP electorates, given the party’s polling has plummeted to one of its worst results since it was merged almost a decade ago.

That does not clear the path for Palaszczuk, however. Labor cannot seem to muster the votes it obtained at the last election.

Regional seats that snuck over the line at the last election may be in peril as a result.

Nicholls and Palaszczuk need to desperately increase their vote because neither would likely win enough seats to govern in their own right.

Hanson is winning this race before she has actually entered it.

Originally published as Queensland Election 2017: LNP leader frontrunner, but...