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ELECTION CLIFFHANGER: Exclusive poll finds crucial Corangamite result too close to call
CORANGAMITE voters are set for a cliffhanger federal election result, with the latest polling declaring the seat too close to call.
Exclusive YouGov polling commissioned by News Corp suggests that Liberal Stephanie Asher has a slight edge in the primary voting in Corangamite but that the two major parties couldn’t be split after distribution of preferences.
Nationally, the polls found Labor was in the box seat for a convincing victory on May 21.
CORANGAMITE voters are set for a cliffhanger at the federal election with comprehensive polling revealing the Liberals have an edge but the seat is too close to call.
Exclusive YouGov polling found Corangamite’s twoparty-preferred vote was 50-50. Liberal challenger Stephanie Asher led Labor incumbent Libby Coker by 7 per cent on first preference, the polling showed.
The polling prepared for the Geelong Advertiser found the first-preference vote in Corangamite gave 36 per cent to Labor, 43 to Liberals, 10 to the Greens, three to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, four to United Australia Party and four to other parties.
The YouGov poll, completed between April 14 and May 7, drew insights from surveys with about 19,000 voters across all federal parliament’s 151 Lower House seats, and demographic data in each seat.
It comes after a Geelong Advertiser exit poll of 100 people who voted at Torquay on Monday found 50 voted Labor, 39 Liberal, six for the Greens, four for the Animal Justice Party and one for the UAP.
Deakin University senior politics lecturer Geoff Robinson said this week Ms Asher needed about 9000 more firstpreference votes than Labor to account for preference flows and win Corangamite.
Corangamite how-to-vote cards reveal the UAP and PHON want voters to preference Liberal over Labor, while the Greens, AJP, Liberal Democrats and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party want voters to preference Labor over Liberal.
In Wannon, which takes in Aireys Inlet, Lorne, Apollo Bay and Anglesea, the YouGov poll found the two-party preferred vote was 58-42 to federal Trade Minister Dan Tehan over Labor’s Gilbert Wilson.
“Teal” independent and former Triple J host Alex Dyson is among others challenging for the seat.
YouGov Asia-Pacific head of polling Campbell White said its polling was not a “prediction about the future” but was a “measurement at the time taken”.
Mr White said wellfinanced, highly organised independents and minor parties such as the Greens, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation needed to win votes “in the right places” to deliver a hung parliament.
“The reality is that even if these candidates and parties win a lot of votes at the national level, there will not be a hung parliament unless they can obtain enough votes in the right places, so that these votes are converted into seats won,” he said.