New RedBridge poll shows glimmer of hope for Coalition as Labor leads

A new poll of 20 key seats has revealed Labor is ahead but the Coalition could claw back enough ground to force Anthony Albanese into a deal with the Greens.

• Where there’s real trouble for Liberals if they can’t convert

Labor retains an election winning lead across key marginal seats but with a week of the election campaign left to go its vote remains soft.

With seven days until polling day the latest RedBridge-Accent tracking poll of 20 marginal seats has found that after weeks of falling, the Coalition vote has stabilised.

And while Labor remains an election-winning lead of 54.5 per cent its vote remains much softer than the Coalition’s which is far more locked in behind Peter Dutton.

The poll points to a likely minority Labor government dependent on independents but with so many voters still undecided or there is still a chance the Coalition could claw back enough ground to force Mr Albanese to rely on the Greens to retain office.

Labor’s primary vote remained static on 35 per cent as did the Coalition with 34 per cent with the Greens on 14 and the per cent and other minor parties and independents on 17 per cent.

Since the last election the Coalition’s primary has dropped 5 per cent while Labor’s is up 1 per cent.

Combining the last RedBridge-Accent two track polls, Labor now leads on a two-party-preferred basis with both men and women in every state, in metro and regional seats, and in every age group younger than Baby Boomers.

Voters remain far from locked in however with only 59 per cent of them ‘solid’ in their preferences, compared to 31 per cent who are ‘soft’ and 10 per cent who are just ‘leaning’ towards one side or the other.

The gap between the share of the two parties’ vote considered ‘solid’ has widened to the Coalition’s advantage in the past week.

In this poll the share of Labor’s solid vote has remained static at 59 per cent while the Coalition’s has jumped from 67 per cent 74 per cent.

There was also an improvement in the voters’ perceptions of the Coalitions’ performance on cost-of-living and crime and public safety where it maintains big leads over Labor

But on the critical issue of health, Labor remains well ahead.

RedBridge director Tony Barry said the large number of voters up for grabs meant the result was still uncertain.

“The continued large soft vote segment means the Coalition can’t be counted out of the fight but the issues performance numbers in this poll indicates that all of Labor’s messages are landing, particularly their Mediscare 2.0 campaign,” he said.

His colleague Kos Samaras said Labor was now leading across nearly every major demographic in the track.

“The most dramatic shift is unfolding in Victoria, where only a handful of seats remain truly competitive,” he said.

“This national turnaround has been largely driven by Millennial and Gen Z voters, many of whom had initially indicated support for the Coalition but have since swung toward a range of minor parties across the political spectrum.”

Accent’s Shaun Ratcliff said public opinion appeared to be stabilising, with voters’ views of the parties and leaders mostly holding steady since the last track.

“This lands us on a likely substantial Labor lead, with an estimated two-party swing of between 0 and 7 per cent to Labor, with the most likely outcome being +4 per cent,” he said.

“What is interesting is that perceptions of Labor’s performance on the economy continue to improve, up 8 percentage points since the first wave of the track, while the Coalition is still in freefall, down 25 points since February among voters who rate this one of their most important issues.”