Jacinta Allan maintains commanding lead over Coalition but gap narrows

Newly installed Premier Jacinta Allan has a commanding lead over Opposition Leader John Pesutto as Victorian voters’ preferred premier, but the primary vote gap between the two major parties has narrowed to its tightest margin in a year.

The findings are contained in an exclusive survey conducted by Resolve Strategic for The Age – the first since Allan became premier – which also found the majority of Victorians want an inquiry to examine the actions of the state government during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jacinta Allan is favoured by 38 per cent of voters – placing her well ahead of Opposition Leader John Pesutto.Credit: The Age

The Resolve Political Monitor surveyed 1100 eligible Victorian voters in early September and early October – representing the weeks before and after Daniel Andrews’ resignation as premier.

Support for the government has remained steady over the past two months, with Labor recording an unchanged primary vote of 39 per cent despite the resignation of Andrews in September.

The Liberal Party has managed to claw back some support from independents and minor party candidates, lifting the Coalition’s primary vote by 4 percentage points. The poll’s margin of error was 3 per cent across the full two-month poll.

But the findings suggest that the Coalition has so far been unable to capitalise on Andrews’ departure after nine years in the top job. The primary vote gap narrowed before Andrews announced he was stepping down on September 26 and remained static for voters polled in early October.

While Labor’s vote hasn’t budged since August, the Coalition’s primary vote is now 32 per cent – the highest it has been since the state election last November. The gap between the two sides is now 7 percentage points, representing a tightening since June when the margin between Labor and the Coalition widened to 15 per cent.

The tightening of the primary vote failed to deliver a personal boost to Pesutto, whose popularity as the state’s preferred premier slumped to just 19 per cent after Allan won the support of Labor’s caucus to become premier.

In January, half of all voters preferred Andrews as premier over Pesutto, who trailed on 26 per cent. It was the biggest lead Andrews had on any of his opponents since mid-2021, when he recorded a 26-point advantage over then Liberal leader Michael O’Brien.

By early September, that gap had narrowed to just 8 per cent when Andrews recorded his lowest score as preferred premier (41 per cent) and Pesutto rose to 32 per cent.

Allan, who replaced Andrews as leader on September 27, is now favoured by 38 per cent of voters – placing her well ahead of Pesutto. However, Allan has been unable to attain the same level of popularity Andrews enjoyed as the state’s preferred leader.

The portion of voters who said they were undecided lifted 16 percentage points to 43 per cent. The sample size for the two preferred leader polls in September and October was 550 and 553, respectively, with a margin of error of 4.2 per cent.

Monash University political scientist Zareh Ghazarian told The Age that the latest survey confirmed Andrews’ status as a “political giant”.

“Anyone following Daniel Andrews was always going to have a big task ahead of them. While Labor remains ahead, even in her honeymoon period Jacinta Allan can’t reach his (Andrews’) level of support,” Ghazarian said.

“These numbers, particularly the change in preferred premier, remind us of what a giant he was.”

As premier, Andrews consistently polled strongly as preferred premier but support for the Labor leader began to wane in the middle of the year as his party dealt with a string of scandals including the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, the release of an anti-corruption report and the resignation of a Labor MP over assault allegations.

While Allan out-polled Pesutto as preferred leader, Resolve director Jim Reed said Labor’s leadership change had triggered a jump in the number of voters unsure which leader they wanted to run the state which suggested they were open to “reassessing their vote”.

“New leaders often get a boost, but she certainly hasn’t seen the vote jump,” Reed said. “Voters seem quite open to Jacinta Allan and are in a period of realignment.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Allan during a ministry meeting in Melbourne on Wednesday.Credit: Jason South

Allan has also inherited a budget that carried $115 billion in net debt in 2022/23, and on Wednesday faced a call from the public sector union for a 20 per cent pay rise, with the right to work a four-day week.

Support for the Greens has fallen marginally since August from 13 to 12 per cent, while independent candidates have fallen from 13 to 10 per cent.

Resolve Strategic researchers asked Victorians to explain the reasons they support either party. The latest findings indicated that Labor’s decision to cancel the Commonwealth Games hurt the government, with the issue raised by both supporters of the government and the Coalition.

“They lost a bit of trust with the Commonwealth Games debacle, but they’ve been generally good on most issues,” one Labor supporter said.

“Labor governments tend to be poor money managers, and we’re seeing that now. We’re going off a cliff,” another person who identified as a Coalition voter said.

As part of the survey, voters were also asked if they would support or oppose a Victorian inquiry into the state government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 58 per cent supportive of a probe.

Only 19 per cent of those polled oppose an inquiry, which comes after the Albanese government exempted state and territory governments from a federal investigation into the nation’s handling of the pandemic.

Support for a Victorian inquiry was more popular among Coalition voters, with 67 per cent backing the plan, while almost half of all Labor voters (49 per cent) supported a state-based investigation.

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