New poll from RedBridge-Accent reveals eight seats where Labor faces an election nightmare in Victoria

While Anthony Albanese got a recent popularity bump, a new poll shows Labor is facing an electoral bloodbath in Victoria with up to eight seats at risk. See the results, have your say.

Labor is facing an electoral disaster in Victoria with up to eight seats at risk of falling to the Coalition in the federal election.

The latest RedBridge-Accent tracking poll of 20 marginal seats shows Victoria is now a nightmare state for Anthony Albanese, on track to deliver the most seats to Peter Dutton.

It shows an 8.4 per cent two-party preferred swing to the Liberals since the last election in what has traditionally the best performing state for the ALP.

The poll also shows the Opposition Leader leads the PM on strength, ability to inspire hope, shared values with voters and who has the better economic plan for Australia.

The Coalition also leads Labor on important issues such as cost-of-living, housing, health and crime.

Labor insiders say voters are turning on Federal Labor because of unhappiness after more than a decade of state Labor Government.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has had a bump in the polls. Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has a fight on his hands. Picture: NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

“It’s clearly a factor – the question is how much of a uplift for the reworking of the infrastructure spend we get,” a Federal Labor MP said referring to the extra $2 billion promised for Melbourne Airport rail earlier this week, adding “clearly the west is a particular problem”.

Across the five Victorian seats included in the track – Aston, Casey, Chisholm and Menzies in the eastern suburbs as well as Corangamite near Geelong – Labor’s two-party-preferred vote has shrunk to 43 per cent down from 51.4 per cent at the 2022 election.

A two-party preferred vote of 43 per cent in Victoria would see Labor lose Aston and Chisholm as well as McEwen in Melbourne’s north and the southeastern seats of Bruce and Dunkley.

But Labor insiders say the party is also fighting its life in Hawke which includes Sunbury as well as Corangamite and the southeastern suburbs seat of Holt, all of which are held by less than 8 per cent.

A Labor insider said the party had already written off Aston, Chisholm and McEwen.

“I have heard from a party official about those three being gone,” the insider said.

He said the party was concentrating its resources on holding Bruce, Dunkley, Hawke, Corangamite and Holt.

RedBridge director Tony Barry said Victoria was now the best performing state for voter perceptions of the Liberal Party brand with a net favourability of +10 and was being presented with a once-in-a-generation opportunity in a state it had underperformed in historically.

“These numbers show the preconditions are there for the Liberal Party to pick up around half the seats they need to win government from Victoria alone,” he said.

“The test for the Victorian Liberal Party is to convert this big political opportunity into actual change seats. “

“If the Liberal Party can work its way down the pendulum to Victorian seats like Hawke and even Isaacs it will redraw the electoral map and put a lot of pressure on Labor to sandbag marginal seats in other states.”

Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin. Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

He said a bad federal result would augur badly for the state government.

“If Labor loses some of these Victorian federal seats down pendulum it will also have massive political ramifications for the Allan Labor Government with newly elected federal Liberal MPs in state seats where there has not recently been any non-Labor presence,” he said.

His colleague Kos Samaras RedBridge’s Kos Samaras said the poll showed cost of living, housing and the economy are still the issues that voters care about the most.

“If we look at an electoral map of Australia, there are green pastures in Western Australia for Labor but they are going to confront a great big bomb crater in Victoria and a mine field in NSW,” he said.

Nationally the tracking poll found Labor clawing back ground in critical marginal seats with the Coalition’s lead slashed in the past fortnight from 52 per cent to 50.5 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor, Michele Bullock who was behind the latest interest rate cut. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The movement toward the government followed the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cut almost two weeks ago – the first since 2020 – Mr Albanese’s pledge of $8.5 billion to make most GP visits free, and $2.4 billion to keep the Whyalla Steelworks open.

The Whyalla steelworks in South Australia.

On the back of this news, the poll recorded an improvement in Australians’ optimism about the future with the percentage saying they think the country is generally going in the right direction jumping from 27 per cent to 33 per cent while the pessimists fell from 55 per cent to 50 per cent.

Since the last election there has been an average swing of 1.5 per cent two-party-preferred to the Coalition across the seats polled.

As well as a drop in its vote share, the Coalition also saw a weakening of the commitment of people saying they are planning on voting for it.

In the first track poll earlier this month 69 per cent of Coalition voters said they were certain to vote for it.

But in the past two weeks this has dropped to 61 per cent while the rock-solid Labor vote increased slightly from 45 per cent to 47 per cent.

In another good sign for Labor, during that period Mr Albanese has grown less unpopular with marginal seat voters.

While his net-favourability rating – a number generated by subtracting those who have a negative view of him from those who view him favourably – is still in negative territory at -11 it has improved five points from the -16 he was on two weeks ago.

In contrast Mr Dutton’s net-favourability has deteriorated slightly from -11 to -13 which is still better than the PM’s.

However the Opposition leader has healthy leads over the PM on the question of an economic plan for Australia, leadership strength, shared values and the capacity to inspire hope.

The Coalition also maintains decent margins when people are asked to judge the parties’ performances on issues they care about, especially cost-of-living, housing, the economy and crime and public safety.

Housing affordability is still a big issue for voters. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

But in the wake of last Sunday’s Medicare announcement Labor got a 22 point bounce in its net-favourability health rating and is now only one point behind the Coalition.

The interest rate cut has also helped the Government with 19 per cent of all voters and 35 per cent of Labor voters saying it makes them more likely to vote Labor.

The move appears to have had more impact on the voting intentions of women – 22 per cent of whom said it would make them more likely to vote Labor – compared with 15 per cent of men.

Overall however a clear majority – 65 per cent – of voters said it would make no difference to whether they voted for the Government.

Asked if they had heard something in the past week which had changed feelings about Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton for better or worse, 9 per cent said they had that made them think more favourably of the PM compared with 6 per cent in the first track.

Accent’s Dr Shaun Ratcliff said Labor’s vote appeared to have improved since the first wave but its vote remains soft, so any gains could be temporary.

“This change is within the margin of error, but we and no doubt both campaigns will be looking to see if this trend continues in the weeks ahead,” he said.