Carpenter: Polling poorly?

The Poll Bludger has a bit about the likely successor to WA Premier Geoff Gallop (who, as we know, resigned because of his depression). Alan Carpenter, the State Development Minister, is his pick, based on the writings of Andrew Landeryou. I don’t tend to follow WA politics much except in the sense of wanting to see how the parties are going in general. More to see how long the ALP will maintain its grip on all the states and territories than anything else. The last WA Newspoll, happily, was on the 9th of January, so fairly recent (although of course before Gallop announced his resignation). The 2PP is ALP 48-52 LIB, with primaries ALP 37, Coalition 43, Others 20. Not much joy for Labor there, then.

Considering that Gallop was beating his rival, Birney, 51-25 in the Preferred Premier stakes, I can’t see how a new leader is going to do the ALP any favours. But, as there’s still years till the next election, it really isn’t too much of a problem for them at the moment.

Marginal Newspoll

Tuesday’s Newspoll in The Oz offered some interesting news.

As well as putting Labor on 42% of primary votes to the Coalition’s 39%, the 2PP splits ALP 54-46 LIB. That’s a swing from last year’s election of almost 7%.

It’s worth looking at the margin of error here. Newspoll lists its margin of error as around 3% either way. That means that an 8% gap (like that of this week) is the smallest Newspoll result that definitively indicates a lead.

It’s worth bearing the margin of error in mind while reading polls before hysterically reacting to them. Today’s poll could indicate anything between ALP 51-49 LIB and ALP 57-43 LIB. All we can judge for sure is that Labor has a lead. The size of that lead could be anything between tiny and landslide proprotions. Certain sections of the media would do well to remember that.

Anyway, it’s still two years until the election.