William Bowe
Editor of The Poll Bludger @PollBludger
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, is one of the most heavily trafficked forums for online discussion of Australian politics, and joined the Crikey stable in 2008.
As one of Tasmania’s constitutionally mandated five House of Representatives seats, Franklin has a lower than normal enrolment (72,500 compared with a national average of about 96,000) and has existed without interruption since the state was first divided into electorates in 1903. With Denison accommodating central Hobart and the suburbs on the western bank of […]
The eastern and outer southern Hobart seat of Franklin has been in the Labor fold for two decades, but the party is said to have grave fears for the seat amid a state-wide collapse in support.
Yes, WA Labor lost. But the party didn't lose big, and it's very difficult to dislodge a first-term government. The result will not be the end of WA Labor, and Mark McGowan will be in a stronger position next time around.
The western Sydney electorate of Greenway delivered the government a crucial win at the 2010 election, prompting much soul-searching from a Liberal Party, which had been tardy in preselecting candidates in this and other key New South Wales seats. Greenway now stands as Labor’s most vulnerable seat ahead of an anticipated tidal wave in suburban […]
Colin Barnett's Liberal government in Western Australia won a decisive majority in the state poll on Saturday, marginalising the Nationals and giving federal Labor headaches.
The hangover for Labor after the Western Australian election is crippling. Crikey's polling guru examines the wreckage and the key gains for the returned Barnett government.
WA Labor leader Mark McGowan is personally popular, but that won't be enough to get his party over the line in tomorrow's state election. But is a vote for Barnett a vote for Troy Buswell?
The central Queensland electorate of Capricornia has existed since Federation, with Rockhampton as its constant as boundaries shifted over the years. It currently has Rockhampton at its southern coastal end, from which it extends northwards to the southern outskirts of Mackay and westwards through farming and coal mining communities as far as Belyando, 250 kilometres […]
I’ve knocked together a linear regression model to fit the results of the 2008 Western Australian state election in the vague hope it might shed some insight on where Labor and Liberal overperformed and underperformed. I’ve limited this to metropolitan electorates, because the relationship between voting and the most potent explanatory variable — income — breaks down […]
With the baseball bats out, Mark McGowan faces a hammering at the Western Australian election. The Opposition Leader has done a good job, but federal Labor's woes will ensure defeat.
