Poll has Hendo leading battle
Lib’s big fightback
SARAH Henderson looks on track to retain the key marginal seat of Corangamite in a major boost to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s hopes of winning government, according to an exclusive Geelong Advertiser poll.
A ReachTEL poll of 788 Corangamite voters conducted for the Addy earlier this week showed 42.1 per cent of those surveyed would give Ms Henderson their primary vote.
The results show a remarkable turnaround in Ms Henderson’s support after she polled just 32.2 per cent in December.
The results also show the first positive signs of a recovery for the Coalition with the federal election race expected to tighten as we near the May 18 poll.
Scott Morrison was strongly backed to make the better Prime Minister with 54.1 per cent of those surveyed favouring him compared to 45.9 per cent for Labor’s Bill Shorten.
On a two party preferred basis, Ms Henderson would take the seat 52 per cent to Labor’s 48 per cent.
The results are particularly worrying for Labor’s candidate for Corangamite, Libby Coker, who saw her primary vote fall to 34.9 per cent — down from the 40.9 per cent she polled in December.
At the last election, the Greens captured 11.45 per cent of first preference votes, but their support fell to 8.2 per cent in this week’s poll.
Just 5.7 per cent of Corangamite voters surveyed said they would vote for the United Australia Party while 5.6 per cent plumped for an independent or “other” candidate.
Held by Ms Henderson since 2013, the seat of Corangamite is among the most marginal federal seats in the country.
The former ABC presenter won the seat with a 3.13 per cent margin in 2016, but since a boundary redistribution cut out some of her key support pockets, that slim margin has been wiped out.
After redistribution adjustments, the seat has a margin of 0.03 per cent — or just 30 votes — in Labor’s favour.
Encouragingly for Ms Henderson, her support has risen dramatically among young voters with 39.6 per cent of 18-34 year olds favouring her compared to 39 per cent for Ms Coker.
Last year’s Liberal Party leadership change from Malcolm Turnbull to Mr Morrison appears to be less of an issue with those surveyed compared to last December.
Nearly 45 per cent of those surveyed said they were less likely to vote for the party after Mr Morrison became Prime Minister compared to 57 per cent in December.
Half of 18-34 year olds were most turned off by the prime ministerial knifing, saying they were less likely to vote Liberal after the change. Support for the change in PM was higher among men (40.4 per cent) than women (29.5 per cent).