Warringah race tightens: Abbott and Steggall neck-and-neck

Tony Abbott’s prospects of surviving a challenge from Zali Steggall appear to have improved according to Liberal polling.

Liberal member for Warringah Tony Abbott at the pre-poll booth in Brookvale. Picture: Jane Dempster

Tony Abbott’s prospects of surviving a challenge from independent candidate Zali Steggall appear to have improved, according to internal­ Liberal Party polling that shows him level at 50-50.

Polling conducted in the past week confirms an unprecedented tight contest in Warringah, with the former Liberal prime minister fighting for his political life as GetUp pours enormous resources into a campaign effort to oust him.

But the Liberals’ polling suggests­ his stocks have lifted after two earlier polls commissioned by GetUp gave a clear lead to Ms Steggall.

It also suggests a turnaround for Mr Abbott if Nine newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald was correct in reporting early last month that internal polling then was “diabolically bad” for him.

GetUp said Mr Abbott was on track for defeat after a Lonergan poll it commissioned on May 1 showed Ms Steggall, a Sydney ­barrister and former Olympic skier, ahead 56 per cent to 44 per cent based on a ­notional allocatio­n of preferences.

A ReachTEL poll commissioned by GetUp in February favoured­ Ms Steggall 54-46, and put Mr ­Abbott’s primary vote at 38 per cent. Warringah has always been a Liberal seat, with the party’s primary vote not slipping below 50 per cent since 1983.

Mr Abbott suffered a 9.2 per cent swing against him in 2016 when challenged by independent candidate James Mathison, a former­ Australian Idol host, but still won the seat easily by gaining a 51.6 per cent majority on primary votes, and 61.1 per cent after the counting of preferences.

Labor and the Greens each gained more primary votes than Mathison’s 11.4 per cent.

The Steggall campaign team hopes her public profile, and the argument that the former prime minister is out of touch with the views of his electorate on climate change and same-sex marriage, will be enough to force his primary vote down to about 40 per cent.

By pitching herself as opposed to Labor’s tax policies while ­advocating urgent action on clim­ate change, Ms Steggall wants to replicate the success of inde­pendent MP Kerryn Phelps in October­, when she won Malcolm Turnbull’s former seat of Wentworth as a “small-l liberal” by winning­ over disenchanted Liberals and scooping up preferences from Labor and the Greens.