Polling for the 2022 midterms was more accurate than the dramatically wrong predictions of 2016 and 2020, leading one pollster to boast, ‘The death of polling has been greatly exaggerated.’
The U.S. midterms revealed a generational shift away from youth voter apathy. The apathetic, in fact, seem to be those trying to accurately measure public opinion using outdated methods.
Will some polls misfire in prominent races in the 2022 midterms? Probably. Will such errors be eye-catching? In some cases, perhaps. Will the news media continue to tout polls? Undoubtedly.
Labor needs substantially more than 50% of the two-party preferred vote – 51.8% according to the pendulum – to win the majority of seats, 76. This equates to a swing of 3.3 percentage points.
While the latest polls show the Coalition struggling to gain ground on Labor in two-party preferred terms, Scott Morrison maintains his lead as preferred prime minister.
At the 2019 election, the polls got it seriously wrong. State polls and election results suggest this may have been corrected, but it’s by no means certain.
Would Australians vote for an Indigenous Voice in the Constitution, or just approve the parliament simply legislating a Voice?
Australians may support one, both, or neither.
Professor of Economics and Finance. Director of the Betting Research Unit and the Political Forecasting Unit at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University