Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, looks set to secure a third term in office, despite waning support for his government and its flagship Suburban Rail Loop project, which the opposition last month vowed to scrap if elected in November.
The latest Guardian Essential poll of 536 Victorian voters found 35.3% intend to give Labor their first-preference vote, a drop of 7.56 percentage points since it won the 2018 state election with a landslide 43%.
The Coalition’s first-preference vote has also dropped to 32.2%, down from 35.2% in 2018, while the Greens remain consistent at 10.2%.
While 8% of respondents said they had already made up their mind to give their first-preference vote to an independent, about half of all respondents said they would consider doing so.
The executive director of Essential Media, Peter Lewis, said he expected Labor to absorb some of the 11.9% of undecided respondents.
“I wouldn’t characterise the poll as showing a huge drop in Labor support at this stage, when taking into account that high undecided response. It is largely consistent with other polling suggesting the Labor government will secure a third term,” he said.
Guardian Australia understands Labor’s internal party polling is forecasting an overall swing against the government of 4% to 5%, although this would not cost them the election due to the high benchmark set at the 2018 poll.
“It’s inevitable we’re going to lose some seats, particularly the ones we never expected to have picked up last time,” said one Labor MP, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely.
In the 2018 “Danslide”, Labor secured more than 57% of the two-party-preferred vote and reduced the Coalition to just 27 of the 88 seats in the lower house. To win outright, the Coalition would need a net gain of 18 seats.
Adding to its woes, the Coalition will enter the race in a worse position than it was then, thanks to an electoral redistribution that sees Labor gain two net seats.
It is also fending off challenges from “teal” independents in the inner-city Liberal seats of Brighton, Caulfield, Sandringham and Kew, and in Hawthorn, where former Liberal MP John Pesutto is running after losing the seat to Labor in 2018.
However, it appears opposition leader, Matthew Guy’s, pledge to shelve the Suburban Rail Loop project is resonating with voters.
Another poll of 550 voters shows 56% of respondents are either indifferent (31%) or opposed (25%) to construction beginning on stage one of the proposed 90km underground railway line, running between Cheltenham in the south-east and Werribee in the south-west via Melbourne airport.
Forty-four per cent of respondents either strongly support or somewhat support the work on project.
Guy last month pledged that, if elected, he would halt work on the first 26km of the project and reinvest about $9.6bn committed by the government into the state’s Covid-battered health system.
Transport and planning experts welcomed the announcement, having raised concerns over the development of the project on the eve of the previous state election, without the involvement from cabinet, the head of the Department of Transport, experts or the community.
Andrews has maintained the electorate voted for the project in 2018, where there was an above-average swing to Labor in 11 electorates set to benefit from the loop.
The Essential polling shows support for the project differs by party lines, with 60% of Labor voters supportive and 48% of Coalition voters opposing it.
Support was lowest among voters aged 18 to 34, with just 9% of respondents in the age group strongly supportive of the project, compared to 20% in the 35-54 and 55+ groups.
The polling was conducted between 31 August and 7 September, when a report detailing 33 deaths linked to delays at the state’s triple zero calling-taking service was released.
