Downer staring at defeat again at hands of Sharkie

Rebekha Sharkie is set to repeat her by-election victory over the Liberals’ Georgina Downer in Mayo.

The Liberal candidate for Mayo, Georgina Downer. Picture: James Elsby.

Rebekha Sharkie is set to repeat her by-election victory over the Liberals’ Georgina Downer in the South Australian seat of Mayo, with a new poll finding the Centre Alliance MP well clear.

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Such a result would leave the political future of Ms Downer, the daughter of former Liberal leader and Mayo MP Alexander Downer, in uncertain territory.

Having returned to her home state last year to contest the seat her father held from 1984 to 2008, Ms Downer was comfortably ­beaten in the by-election.

Ms Downer, 39, previously failed to win preselection in the safe Victorian Liberal seat of Goldstein.

The YouGov Galaxy poll, conducted last week and published yesterday by The Advertiser, found primary support for Ms Downer in the once blue-ribbon seat at 38 per cent. Ms Sharkie, Centre ­Alliance’s only lower house MP, had primary support of 43 per cent, while Labor and the Greens both received 7 per cent support, and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party 3 per cent.

The poll had Ms Sharkie ahead of Ms Downer on a two-party basis, 57-43 per cent — an almost identical result to the by-election.

Campaigning in Mayo, which stretches from the Adelaide Hills in the north to Kangaroo Island in the south, has intensified in the past fortnight. Ms Sharkie accused the Liberals of using “smear and fear” tactics, but then banned one of her volunteers from campaigning after he was charged with ­allegedly stalking Ms Downer.

Ms Downer has portrayed her opponent as a Labor patsy.