The numbers in Mt Albert
First some stats:
- National’s party vote in Mt Albert was only 35.7% – 4.4% lower than any seat National did win.
- Clark’s majority of 10,351 is the third largest of seats not held by National – only Epsom and Manukau East are higher
- The combined party vote for the left (L/G/P) was 54.3%, for the centre (NZF/M/U) 4.1% and for the right (N/A) was 39.2%
- The combined party vote for the right is the 9th lowest out of 63 general seats. For the left their party vote is the 9th highest out of 63 general seats.
- Seats with a smaller gap between right and left are Mana, Wigram, Hutt South and New Lynn
Mt Albert is fundamentally a leftwing seat. This does not mean it is impossible for National to win it, but the focus purely on National vs Labour party vote is misleading.
Also at the end of the day, while the party vote is the best primary indicator of support, this is a winner take all electorate vote contest and we will see tactical voting on the right and left. So how might we calculate how thinsg look. Let us start with 2008 party vote:
- Labour 14,894 or 42.6%
- National 12,468 or 35.7%
- Green 3,846 or 11.0%
- ACT 1,227 or 3.5%
Now let us adjust these for movement since the election, taking the Curia public poll average:
- Labour has gone from 34.0% to 30.8% – a relative decrease of 9.4%
- National has gone from 44.9% to 53.1% – increase 18.2%
- Green has gone from 6.7% to 7.5% – increase of 11.6%
- ACT has gone from 3.6% to 2.5% – decrease of 31.4%
So applying this to the party vote, we get
- Labour 13,497
- National 14,735
- Green 4,291
- ACT 841
So does this mean National is in the lead? Well hold off. Because this is an FPP electorate contest and minor party voters vote tactically. How did votes split their votes in 2008? We can’t use Mt Albert as an example, as that was influenced by the Clark factor. So let us use the overall vote splitting for general seats. This tells us:
- Green party voters voted 33.9% Green candidate and 47.9% Labour candidate and 10.9% National candidate
- ACT party voters voted 16.4% ACT candidate, 4.8% Labour candidate and 73.1% National.
What does this then give us:
- Labour 15,593
- National 15,818
So on these calculations, it is within 250 votes. But then you look at more qualative factors:
- Shearer is the only non List MP who can say I will not be in Parliament if you do not vote for me. I think this is easily worth 2,000 votes.
- Despite high honeymoon polls, there is little reason for people to give the Government an additional seat – no Government has won a by-election for at least 70 years. It is hard to excite pro-Govt supporters to get out and vote as they no this won’t change anything – worth around 1,000 votes
- Greens and ACT will be mounting vigorous campaigns. As the Greens have more voters to appeal to, I would say this could knock 1,000 votes off Labour and 500 votes off National, so a net loss to Labour of 500
- Labour’s on the ground organisation in Mt Albert should be worth at least 500 votes
- Shearer will appeal to some centre-right voters with his backgroudn and views – again maybe 500 votes.
So add all these factors up and I’d say they give Labour an extra 3,500 votes or so, which if nothing else happens would have them win the seat by around 3,250 votes.
Now it is never this simple. Events will occur that change this. But at this stage what I think it shows is that yes it is possible National could win the seat with a very narrow 250 vote majority, but more likely Labour holds on with 3,000 or so votes.
What will be the events that can change this? Well polls and tactical voting. If a poll shows National and Labour neck and neck, and Greens well back, then the Green vote may collapse to Shearer. But likewise if a poll shows the Greens at over 15%, maybe even 20% – then they could make a strong play for Labour voters to vote Greens to give Labour a guaranteed future coalition partner (Labour can probably never govern again without the Greens).
Let the campaigns begin!
May 5th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Thanks for that analysis David. Can we start a sweepstake? I call it for Shearer by 2,245 votes.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I know.
Why doesn’t David get involved with a computer geek and create an Election Result Simulation Program…
Once it is finally tuned we can remove the need for the public to vote at all. The simulator will give us the result based on a set of assumptions feed into it.
That way no one will forget to vote, and the result will always be correct since you can’t argue with a computer…
Anyway I predict a Green upset… It is certainly possible.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Tactical voting of Green supporters for Labour would hurt Norman’s mana. Standing your party leader (male) in a seat and having him receive a few hundred votes would make him, and the Greens, look like an irrelevance. So which is the least bad option for Green supporters: Make your leader (male) look like a nobody? Or split the lefty vote and risk giving National a victory?
[DPF: Supporters and activists are different beasts. An activist worries about such things. A supporter is less concerned about the party and more about outcomes]
May 5th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Even the pinko grgeen bone carving wearing middle income earners of Mt Albert have had enough of the tossers that are the Labour party. I wouldnt be surprised to see Norman cut Labours lunch in half while ACT could possibly pick up a growing swing voting National demographic.
Either way it could be very embarrassing for Labour.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Brad H. That’s a great idea. It’s exactly the same way the climate change hysteria has been foisted upon us.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:56 am
God I hope not! Labour plus greens would be worse than just Labour, or Labour plus Winston…
May 5th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Adolf – was going to make the same point myself
May 5th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Yes I agree RGW, & let us not lose sight of the fact that the electorate at large was and still is tired and angry, with the labour party and their coniving partners greens, (bradford et al).
The fact that Bradford, locke etc are keeping a low profile because, generally the voters hate them, will not change the fact that the thinking voters have memories, and know that bradford, locke, norman etc are just watermelons.
We should not underestimate the underlying feeling of disquiet.
Worth gold to the Nats.
That riding on JK’s performance, and the fresh face of Mellissa, stacks up to a close but certainly winnable by election.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:08 am
AF:
“It’s exactly the same way the climate change hysteria has been foisted upon us.”
Yes. Amazing how the Antarctic ice shelf/Greenland ice dome/temperature records all respond to this “foisting” of a myth upon us. Never knew it would actually affect the real world!
May 5th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Play the “Clark abandoned you” line for all its worth in Mt Albert…remind voters of the sellout they suffered by their MP bailing out just months after the election.
Add in the “Goff decided who was standing for Labour…not you” issue and this could be slow torture for Labour to try and rescue.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Icebergs have calved off ice shelves forever. Just because it’s happening now doesn’t mean it’s because of humans – in the 1970s climate scientists were worried about cooling and wanted to spread black dust on the ice sheets to create warming.
There is still little evidence to prove global warming – and I note it is now called “climate change”. Most of the temperature readings are done in cities, and cities are hotter now than their surrounding lands. Such readings cannot be relied upon. Neither can shipborne ones – the first in the 1950s were done with overboard thermometers. Today they are done with fixed thermometers, near the engine’s exhaust outlets. Again, hard to prove it without fair measurements.
On a different note, good luck to Shearer. He will be the government’s biggest ally in the Labour party.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:08 am
What have I missed???
Can someone explain to me (in words of one syllable preferably) just why there is a party vote in a by-election?
The parties proportions remain unchanged until the next General Election so isn’t this purely a FPP vote in which case the party vote (and result) is redundant and meaningless??
genuine question as I just don’t get it.
[DPF: It is purely an FPP electorate vote. However to predict what vote might be, it is best to look at the party vote as the 2008 electorate vote involved different candidates]
May 5th, 2009 at 11:21 am
david,
You are right that there is no party vote in a byelection. But last year’s electorate vote is not much use as a guide because the candidates are all different from who they were then. The 2008 party vote is the best guide available to the base level of support for each party in Mt Albert. That is the base which the candidates must then build on.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:31 am
What role will voter turn-out play? From DPF’s numbers it looks like Mt Albert voter turnout in 2008 was about 73% (33000/45000). Will less Labour voters bother to vote now that Helen is gone and it won’t change anything? Did more National voters stay home in 2008 because they knew Helen would be returned? Does a lower voter turnout help the left or right?
May 5th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
There is no way Labour will give this seat to the Greens (even if it is in their best interest longterm). I certainly dont think the Greens have any realistic chance of winning it either.
I think Shearer is a popular candidate and back him to win by just short of 4000, although it is very early to be picking margins! The voter turnout should be larger than the election, despite Clark moving on, since there is far greater media coverage on this seat. I think this will count in Labour’s favour.
I would also not be surprised if some National voters vote for Shearer. It looks good for the right having a privatisation supporter plus Lee is already in Parliament and some may like to see Norman get crushed.
A victory for Goff is hardly going to get his election 2011 campaign on track, but it will sure up his faction (note O’Connor is also back) to the detriment of Clark’s and give him credibility going into the election (which he will lose).
I see Lee getting second by a comfortable margin.
I hope this bi-election is the beginning of the demise of the Greens. In saying that, I think Norman is doing all he can. But without Rod and Jeanette, the Greens will struggle in 2011 (unless Labour falls apart internally).
May 5th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Pat, the low voter turnout should favour National, like it did in the election (think the South Auckland seats). A high turnout will favour Labour and the Greens.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
So on June 13 are we going to see an army of Mini-vans driven by union reps going around the back streets of Avondale to pick up the great unwashed.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I live on the cusp of the Mt Albert electrorate – used to be my electorate till boundary changes. I also grew up in the area, so have a long association. The demographic profile of Mt Albert has changed quite a bit over the last few years. House prices have gone up considerably and the population is very mixed in terms of races. There are some poorer areas, but also lots of good ones. Helen had a strong local vote, and I think this also flowed into the Party vote, so I think this will be a very tight race. The Greens will do well (voters thinking along the lines of – it won’t change the overall power in Government so why not) which will hurt Labour. That the National candidate is young, female and Korean will assist her (in much the same way as being female helped Helen Clark in the ealry years). The issues around candidate selection will not matter – the only people interested are the types of people that read this blog! I’ll go so far as to predict a small National win with a strong Green vote and a collapsed Act vote.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
People say that a government has not won a by-election for some years
Wasnt the Taranaki King Country By-Election won by National when it was in government?
[DPF: By win, meaning win a seat not already held, rather than just retain]
May 5th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
The current prices at ipredict.co.nz makes for interesting reading.
As I see it, they’re effectively pricing Norman at 22%
https://www.ipredict.co.nz/Main.php?do=stock_detail&stock=MTA.LEE.LAB
https://www.ipredict.co.nz/Main.php?do=stock_detail&stock=MTA.LEE.NAT
May 5th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
To me the major political event between now and 13 June is the Budget.
What National does in the Budget may well effect how people will vote. At the moment I see more downside in it for National than upside. Where will they reduce government spending? If so, by how much? What will they do with next years tax cuts? To me people often react negatively to bad news, but tend to be more ambivalent to good news. This may limit the number of swing voters who would change from Labour to National.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Unfortunately, the referendum on the so called compromise anti-parental correction law will not take place until after the by-election.
This law is more than about parental rights. It is about how the law should work in a democracy. Any parent who smacks a young child on the bum is breaking the law regardless of whether the police charge him or her.
The police have demonstrated how fickle they can be in using their discretion in cases of shop owners and home owners protecting themselves against criminals.
A Court – t the police should decide if a parent has assaulted their child. As things stand if a parent smacks their child even lightly and the police prosecute the Court must find them guilty even if they impose no penalty.
Whether National or Labour win in Mt Albert will not make any difference in passing legislation. A stronger than expected vote for ACT will send a message to National to take notice of the will of the people in the coming referendum.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Biomag83 you are a little confused about governments and by-elections.
No government has won a by-election caused by the resignation or death of an opposition member for years. It just doesn’t happen.
The theory is that governments start building up negatives from the day they are elected. By -elections normally see governments punished and the votes become a protest vote. Little strategic value in the Mt Albert seat, except for Phil Goff.
We’re a pack of National supporters on this site so expect Melissa Lee to get within 3000-4000 votes of Shearer.
The only thing to help National-It will be a low poll, especially with labour supporters. They are generally the least motivated to vote and then look for some of the trendy lefties to split off from Shearer and vote for Russel Norman.
The other way Labour will be helped by English’s first budget
Keep your feet firmly on the ground.
By the way National already held Taranaki King Country. A donkey could hold that.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Thanks for that analysis David. Can we start a sweepstake? I call it for Shearer by 2,245 votes.
I predict Lee will get 5 1/2
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Tuija said: I call it for Shearer by 2,245 votes.
Over Norman or over Lee, Tuija?
There’s been a lot of water under the bridge (or over the motorway) since DPF first started this thread!
Don’t forget that plenty of houses will still get bulldozed under Labour’s motorway proposal too, but none will if we build the CBD rail loop and Avondale-Airport rail link the Greens propose and leave the motorway option, if necessary at all (because improved public transport may make it totally unnecessary anyway), for a decision in a few years time.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
toad I was quoting
Rusell is going to win no probs
June 12th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Maybe second ;-}
June 12th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Love this one by Lofty