Tuesday, July 5, 2016

2016 House of Reps Postcount: Cowper

This is just a brief explainer re a seat that is not in significant doubt but that is going to cause confusion. Please post comments on other seats to the thread below.

In the seat of Cowper (NSW), Rob Oakeshott took on the Nationals' Luke Hartsuyker in a last-minute raid that caused the Nationals a lot of panic especially with polls showing a very tight race.  In 2013 this was a classic Coalition-vs-Labor seat.  Because Oakeshott has made the final two in 2016, the AEC is conducting a realignment of the Cowper count by booth.

Because different booths have very different leanings, the sample of booths included in the realignment will cause the two-candidate preferred count between Hartsuyker and Oakeshott to move around a lot in the early stages before eventually settling down.  After six booths Oakeshott is in the lead on that count, which may give an appearance he is winning.



In fact the reason for that appearance is that the colourfully-named collection of booths included in the realignment so far (Gleniffer, Hat Head, Mylestom, Taylors Arm, Thora, Kundabung) are slightly good booths for Oakeshott on average and especially poor booths on average for Hartsuyker.

Oakeshott has received 27.8% of votes in these booths compared with his overall 26.56% of primaries.  Hartsuyker has received 40.8% compared with his overall 46.46%.

In these six booths Oakeshott is receiving 76% of preferences.  However his target preference requirement is 87% and this will probably only steepen as postal votes improve Hartsuyker's position (something especially likely given Oakeshott's late decision to contest).

Despite the appearance of Oakeshott being in front, this will turn around as the realignment continues and Hartsuyker will retain the seat, probably with a margin of around 53:47 or perhaps slightly higher.

Update 4:40:  Sure enough we have the turnaround already and Hartsuyker leads 55:45 in the realignment after just 9 booths.  This will continue to move about but unless it is very close with, say, three quarters of booths counted, there is nothing to see here and you can all go back to sleep.

6 comments:

  1. Another three booths added including Bonville (with 1144 formal votes) putt Hartsuyker ahead by almost 300 votes. The nine booths now skew more to Hartsuyker than the overall 1P.

    Has dropped Oakeshotts average over nine booths to 72.1%, which would give a 54%/46% 2PP and a 7250 or so vote win

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  2. COWPER,NSW
    Couple more big booths added dropping Oakeshott to 67.6% -- he now needs 88% over the balance which is near impossible.

    So think this is LNP and maybe a 10,000 vote win.

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    GREY, SA
    Also now have data for 20 booths (about 16% of the formal count) for Grey. NXT have 67.5% of the preferences, but now need 75% of the balance.

    So again an LNP win by 6000 votes

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    EDEN MONARO, NSW
    Not a seat in doubt but an initial tally of 980 postal votes has been added. These have split 56%/44% to the LNP versus 46%/54% on the ordinary votes -- that would be a trend the LNP is hoping for I suspect

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's not bad - the Coalition only outperformed ordinaries on postals in 2013 by 4 points in Eden-Monaro. However early-counted postals can be stronger for the Coalition than late ones.

      Delete
  3. HINDMARSH, SA
    On about 50% of the postals LNP has picked up net 298 votes cutting ALP lead to 347
    Do it again for the other 50% of votes and that becomes 49 votes

    Then you still have 1865 Absentee and 890 Declaration

    Definitely going to be close and could go either way

    ReplyDelete
  4. It appears in Tasmania (centred mostly around Hobart) there is a voting demographic that could be considered centre-left to left socially, but appear not to be getting on board the Greens train. This appears to be the "base" for people like Wilkie and Lisa Singh. I think these results do send a message that there is a growing group of people who are not aligned with party politics, and that parties need to stop focusing on their opponents and focus on the people.

    ReplyDelete
  5. As I live in Denison I've been watching that for a long time and these people used to be extremely strong for the Greens and will still vote strongly for the Greens when nothing else captures their imagination. They definitely prefer Wilkie to the Greens and at this election a lot of them switched from the Greens to Team Save Lisa, including many who normally treat the ALP with contempt.

    ReplyDelete

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