Exclusive YouGov reveals 50-50 two-party preferred vote in Corangamite, Libs have edge

The Coalition might have the edge in the race for Geelong’s marginal seat, but polling revealed the race is far from over.

Corangamite voters are set for a cliffhanger at the federal election with comprehensive polling revealing the Liberals have an edge but the seat is too close to call.

Exclusive YouGov polling found Corangamite’s two-party-preferred vote was 50-50.

Liberal challenger Stephanie Asher lead Labor incumbent Libby Coker by seven per cent on first preference, the polling showed.

The polling prepared for the Geelong Advertiser found the first-preference vote in Corangamite gave 36 per cent to Labor, 43 to Liberals, 10 to Greens, three to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON), four to United Australia Party (UAP) and four to other parties.

Stephanie Asher, left, and Libby Coker.

The YouGov poll, completed between April 14 and May 7, drew insights from surveys with about 19,000 voters across all federal parliament’s 151 lower house seats, and demographic data in each seat.

It comes after a Geelong Advertiser exit-poll completed on Monday of 100 people who voted at Torqauy found 50 voted Labor, 39 Liberal, six for the Greens, four for the Animal Justice Party (AJP) and one for the UAP.

Deakin University’s senior politics lecturer Geoff Robinson said this week Ms Asher needed about 9000 more first-preference votes than Labor to account for preference flows and win Corangamite.

Corangamite how-to-vote cards reveal the UAP and PHON want voters to preference Liberal over Labor.

While the Greens, AJP, Liberal Democrats and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party want voters to preference Labor over Liberal in Corangamite.

In Wannon, which takes in Aireys Inlet, Lorne, Apollo Bay and Anglesea, the YouGov poll found the 2PP vote was 58-42 to federal trade minister Dan Tehan over Labor’s Gilbert Wilson.

“Teal” independent and former Triple J host Alex Dyson among others are challenging for the seat.

YouGov Asia-Pacific Head of Polling Campbell White said its polling was not a “prediction about the future” but was a “measurement at the time taken.”

Dr White said the YouGov polling combined a technique called multilevel regression with post-stratification (MRP), and electorate-level demographic information.

“(MRP) used to predict results for individual electorates, by combining a large survey – at least ten times as big as a typical national survey – with electorate-level information, such as population density and the proportion of the population with a university degree, from the Census and other government agencies, and previous election results,” Mr White said.

“Using the different features of electorates along with survey responses, we are able to pool the information we have across seats, producing more accurate estimates with a smaller sample.”

Queue of people waiting to vote at the Geelong West Town Hall on Wednesday.

Mr White said well-financed, highly-organised independents and minor parties like the Greens, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation needed to win votes “in the right places” to deliver a hung parliament.

“The reality is that even if these candidates and parties win a lot of votes at the national level, there will not be a hung parliament unless they can obtain enough votes in the right places, so that these votes are converted into seats won.”

Originally published as Exclusive YouGov reveals 50-50 two-party preferred vote in Corangamite, Libs have edge