Australia’s great 2019 election polling catastrophe wasn’t that big a deal, according to one of the most esteemed and experienced public opinion survey junkies in the world. Nate Silver, the one-time New York Times number cruncher who now runs the election focused website and news outlet FiveThirtyEight, dismissed the whole thing with a word. Herding.
Discussing some recent US Democratic Party primary polling last week on his podcast, Silver said pollsters had a duty to publish what they found in their surveys.
What went wrong in the lead-up the May election?
“If you’re dealing with dozens or hundreds of polls in an election campaign, you’re going to have some weird polls,” said Silver. “It is absolutely a pollster’s job to publish the data that it produces as a result of the methodology it did ahead of time. Pollsters should not be saying, ‘I like what that poll says, I’m afraid I might get teased on Twitter. I better not publish that poll’.”
Silver then used the Australian experience to illustrate a case where people said polls shouldn’t have been published because they came up with what turned out to be incorrect findings.
“Labor was one or two points ahead in every poll — they all showed the exact same thing which should have showed ahead of time that there was herding which means pollster were trying to not stick out, they’re trying to not move [from the herd],” said Silver.
This will be no surprise to readers of Crikey. Bernard Keane pointed to herding in his analysis of 2019 election polling here last month which noted there was no consensus on whether herding was the driver of the bad use of polling in our election, but it did stand out as a very likely suspect.
Silver, using the kind of blunt assessment that allowed him to call plenty of recent US electoral contests and give Donald Trump the highest published chance of victory just prior to the 2016 presidential contest, seemed to have nailed it to his satisfaction.
The polls keep rolling on
Silver’s observation went to air just as Australia’s Newspoll was back in the field for its third post-election survey, the results of which were published today.
On the face of it, not much has changed with Newspoll. They now give a published outline of who was surveyed and how. This week’s poll was of 1661 voters across city and country regions from September 5 to September 7 and included 956 online surveys and 705 robo-interviews. There was a margin of error plus or minus of 2.4%, giving a confidence level of about 95%. We’d like to assume the rigour of the methodology has been amped up.
Newspoll remains a trusted and mostly reliable source of longitudinal political opinion even though it’s gone through ownership and management changes which can affect how things are done.
Today’s poll shows not much has changed since the previous published survey published three weeks ago. The primary vote for both major parties increased one point, well within the margin or error and therefore statistically insignificant — this small concurrent change meant the calculated two-party-preferred vote remained the same.
What did change and was statistically very significant was voter satisfaction with Labor leader Anthony Albanese. On this measure he collapsed from a positive seven points to minus five — a turnaround of 12 points and almost five times the margin of error. This is known in the industry as a slam dunk.
What does this mean for Albo?
Albanese’s dive off the popularity cliff was matched by a rebound of a similar size in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s rating — he’s back to a +10 points after having crashed from -15 to 6% up previously.
Of course, these surveys are being conducted years before the next election but the warning light should be flashing at least amber for Labor because right now sentiment about Albanese is in the baking phase.
Given overall support for Labor stayed stable — while the ALP was having disasters of various sizes in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia — the collapse of support for Albanese should be even more worrying for the party.
The likely explanation is Albanese did something that jarred with voters and here we can speculate with some surety. When the NSW politician became leader he avowed a change of heart on border protection and asylum seeker policy — saying he had made mistakes when supporting the push to water down Labor’s approach in the past.
Last week he looked like he didn’t mean those words, instead hitching his support to the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamil family the Morrison government is trying to deport because they don’t qualify as asylum seekers.
Regardless of the merits of the Sri Lankan Tamil family’s case — still to be tested in the courts — Albanese looked like was saying one thing and doing another. That’s a character matter and he ended up on the wrong side, as Newspoll demonstrated with next to no chance of error.
Do you still trust the polls? Send your comments to boss@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name for publication.
Dennis Atkins is a freelance writer based in Brisbane where he was a national political editor during the Howard government. He is filling in for part of the time while Bernard Keane is enjoying a break.
“The likely explanation …….” – from a Murdoch used hack.
“Newspoll remains a trusted and mostly reliable source of longitudinal political opinion…“, by an ex-mudorc hack.
Discuss.
That’s the thing about the m.o. of Murdoch’s number clunkers :– “Start at the point they want to herd us, then going out and finding “experts” and numbers that “bear out” where they want you herded”.
Sometimes they’ll leave out the numbers – and hope that no one checks up on their “evidence”. Like here, in Silver’s “record of expertise” (“Tipping victory
x Clinton : Trump @ 71%:29%”?).
More often than not, on closer inspection, those “numbers” look more like a balloon poodle/sword/penguin : than a validation?
Why does Crikey (otherwise sceptical/critical of the way Limited News wraps it’s “news”) continue to withhold such salient facts as a “temporary” presenter’s history – which goes to the way they present their opinion of “news” – such as where they used to work? In this case Murdoch’s Qld “Curry or Maul” (grooming favour for one party : mauling opposition) in a “one-paper state”?
It’s not like a court case and previous (repeated) history is withheld because it could influence the thinking of the jury looking at their “evidence”?
Or does that = “Freedom of the press” (– to withhold facts)?
Anthony Albanese was always viewed as the ‘people’s choice’ of Labor leader, the “Tory fighter”, the one who was viewed as the best choice to pull the party leftward. So of course, when he finally takes the leadership and instead pulls the party in the opposite direction (at the behest of the Labor Right faction that put him in there in the first place) – of course his popularity and approval ratings will take a nosedive.
Nobody in the ALP seems to comprehend that the redistributive policies that they took to the election are actually popular in the electorate – among the swing voters that would consider putting a “1” in the box next to the ALP candidate. It was their fence-sitting on various issues, their unwillingness to take firm positions, during the campaign that turned people away. Not only have we seen more of this under Albanese’s leadership, we’ve seen the self-proclaimed “Tory fighter” pander to a base that would never put a “1” in the box next to their ALP candidate while at the same time turning away the ALP’s natural support base.
This is why I’d answer disapprove if I were polled on this. I know the media loves to assume the whole country thinks only of The Boats at all times, but if you lose your actual supporters your approval will drop. Can’t be positive without approval.
Are we the entire 12 point drop? Probably not, but we are far from 0% and it is silly the author doesn’t even consider that.
I agree, Matt. Progressives had great hopes for Albanese but since he took on the top job, he’s appeared weak and opportunistic, reluctant to stand up to the government, nervous of being wedged and waving through legislation that Labor supporters expected him to oppose. He doesn’t look like a leader and his claim of being an authentic bloke is looking decidedly shaky.
He can still turn this around by standing up for progressive policies and not cowering before Morrison’s traps. But I don’t think he has long – once the electorate decides he’s just another politician they’ll be unforgiving. Just look at what happened to Turnbull once he effectively disavowed his positions on issues like climate change. He never recovered once the disappointment set in.
Matt (and commenters)…I also agree with your comments. Am disappointed with the way Labor is making decisions under Albo, but I guess that is what you get when a bunch of RWNJs…supposedly ‘independent’ Senators…are running the country. Absolutely hate this scenario, as it is profoundly undemocratic. With a lunatic like Lambie, who wouldn’t know what day it is unless someone told her, making decisions that will grossly affect people’s lives, for example Newstart recipients and ALL unionists, what kind of country have we become?
As for the asylum seeker Tamil family…I don’t think Albo’s visit to Biloela had much to do with his lower approval numbers…but maybe so in Queensland. Since that lot up there inflicted this putrid government on us, and in doing so, completely ignored global warming/climate change, they deserve to burn.
In other words, it is their OWN FAULT!!!!
Peter Lewis, of Essential, revealed another possibility in an interview I heard recently with Peter Fray on the Fourth Estate podcast.
He talked about pollsters discarding undecided/undeclared voters when preparing the 2PP results, which results in poll numbers that misrepresent the voting intentions of people who really don’t care about outcomes and vote for either status quo or are swayed by last minute opinions.
That is an interesting theory, thank you for posting it. Have they drilled down into the data to prove it?
I have never been impressed with the quality of Newspoll’s results but Denis seems impressed and even knows why Albo’s approval has gone down. What a genius! Who would have thought a trip to Bilo would throw such a spanner into the works. Now I would have thought the fall in approval was related to the perception that Albo is ‘rolling over’ too often. Maybe, his rating would have been lower but for the visit to Bilo! But hey, Denis is a News Ltd trained Queenslander he must know these things
Albo makes Shorten look good.
When Shorten and Keneally were out 3 days before Albo on the Sri Lankan family issue you just knew that Albo was under his bed clutching his stuffed bunny, too fearful to emerge in case he had to make a decision.
The Tory killer is killing the ALP.
Inclined to agree RH…I watch politics pretty closely every day, and it appears that Albo has no clear views about anything.
Perhaps he does, and the media are ignoring him more intensely than they did Shorten…but the net result is that Labor appears to stand for very little.
There are plenty of issues around where Albo could show a little spine, and Assange, Witness K, Newstart and Fracking stand out…how long will the deafening silence continue before we see any prospect of a hugely improved governance than we currently suffer.