Victorian Labor has fallen behind both the Coalition and One Nation on primary support in a new statewide poll, intensifying pressure on Premier Ben Carroll little more than two months before Victorians vote on November 28.
The latest Australian Financial Review/RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll puts the Coalition on 29 per cent, One Nation on 25 per cent, Labor on 24 per cent and the Greens on 15 per cent.
The survey of 2,371 Victorians was conducted between September 1 and 14 and carries a reported margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
Labor’s primary vote rose one point from the previous RedBridge poll, while One Nation gained three points and the Coalition slipped one. The changes for Labor and the Coalition are within the poll’s margin of error, meaning the more important finding is the persistence of a fragmented three-way contest rather than a dramatic movement from one survey to the next.
On the poll’s respondent-allocated two-party-preferred measure, the Coalition leads Labor 56–44. Labor leads One Nation 53–47 in a hypothetical head-to-head contest.
Those figures should not be read as a seat forecast.
Victoria’s election will be decided across 88 individual Legislative Assembly districts under preferential voting, and the rise of One Nation complicates traditional statewide two-party measures. A party or coalition requires support in at least 45 seats to command a lower-house majority. The election is fixed for Saturday, November 28.
The poll nevertheless represents a stark change from the political landscape at the 2022 election.
Labor secured 37.03 per cent of lower-house first preferences in 2022 and won 56 of the 87 seats decided on election night, while the Liberals won 18, the Nationals nine and the Greens four. One Nation received just 0.22 per cent statewide at that election and won no lower-house seats.
One Nation has since announced plans to contest all 88 lower-house seats in November, dramatically expanding its Victorian campaign.
That makes the current 25 per cent RedBridge result particularly notable.
The party’s rise has continued despite scrutiny of Victorian leader Warren Pickering, who recently acknowledged using illicit drugs and losing his licence for drink driving when he was younger. Pickering has said he has changed significantly since that period of his life.
RedBridge and Accent Research have described Victoria as increasingly resembling a three-party contest, with Labor, the Coalition and One Nation all attracting substantial blocs of voters.
A separate Resolve Strategic poll released this week points in the same broad direction, though with different numbers.
That survey has the Coalition on 28 per cent, Labor on 25 per cent, One Nation on 23 per cent and the Greens on 12 per cent. It also places Opposition Leader Jess Wilson on 28 per cent as preferred premier, compared with Carroll on 20 per cent and Pickering on 8 per cent, with 44 per cent undecided.
The existence of two separate polls showing Labor in the mid-20s and the Coalition narrowly ahead adds to the pressure on Carroll, who was sworn in as Victoria’s 50th premier on July 28 after replacing Jacinta Allan following a bruising internal Labor leadership crisis.
Carroll immediately attempted to establish distance between his government and the previous leadership.
His first major decision was to call a royal commission into alleged corruption and criminality in Victoria’s construction sector, including the state’s major infrastructure program.
The government has since moved to strengthen IBAC’s powers and establish a special prosecutor capable of acting on evidence uncovered by the royal commission.
Carroll has also tried to refocus the government on what he calls “the basics”, particularly roads, crime, cost of living and outer-suburban infrastructure.
In recent weeks, Labor has announced an additional $352 million for pothole repairs, with a target of fixing 500,000 potholes, and another $550 million towards the Western Freeway upgrade between Melton and Caroline Springs.
But the government continues to face a difficult fiscal backdrop.
Victoria’s 2026-27 budget forecasts general government net debt increasing from $175.6 billion in 2026-27 to $199.3 billion by June 2030, although Treasury forecasts net debt as a share of the state economy will begin declining over the forward estimates.
The government argues its fiscal plan is working, pointing to a forecast operating surplus of $1 billion in 2026-27 and $2 billion by 2029-30.
But polling suggests debt and government spending remain politically damaging issues.
Roy Morgan research last month found the main concerns voters associated with a possible Labor government included corruption and integrity, financial management and state debt, crime and what respondents viewed as the continuation of problems from the Andrews and Allan governments. Concerns about a Coalition government included public-service cuts, internal instability, a lack of policy detail and the possibility of greater One Nation influence.
The Coalition is attempting to capitalise on voter dissatisfaction after 12 years in opposition.
Wilson says the Liberals and Nationals can govern without One Nation support and has ruled out an alliance with the party. In an August interview, she said the Coalition believed it could win without relying on a One Nation preference arrangement.
Labor, however, has made the possibility of a Liberal-One Nation arrangement a central part of its campaign messaging.
When Carroll became premier, he warned voters about what he called the risk of a “Liberal-One Nation Government”, arguing such an arrangement would threaten public services.
The Coalition rejects that framing.
The more immediate electoral question is how preferences behave where Labor, the Coalition and One Nation are all competitive.
One Nation’s decision to field candidates across Victoria creates the possibility of three-cornered contests in outer-suburban and regional electorates where the traditional Labor-versus-Coalition contest is disrupted.
That makes statewide primary votes harder to translate directly into seats.
ABC analysis last month noted that Victoria’s 88-seat chamber means the Coalition would need to substantially increase its lower-house representation to govern in its own right, while One Nation’s presence adds another layer of uncertainty in marginal districts.
RedBridge director Kos Samaras has argued that three-way contests may advantage the Coalition in some electorates if Labor falls into third place on primary votes, because Labor would then depend heavily on Greens and other preference flows to remain competitive.
That is an analyst’s interpretation rather than an election result, and there are still more than two months of campaigning remaining.
The latest RedBridge poll also shows that fewer than half of respondents described their voting intention as firm, underscoring how much movement is still possible before November.
The rise of One Nation is also politically complicated for both major parties.
For Labor, Hanson’s party is attracting support in outer-suburban and working-class communities that have historically helped underpin Labor majorities.
For the Coalition, One Nation competes directly for conservative voters while also potentially providing preference flows in contests against Labor.
Wilson has tried to keep her campaign focused on the Coalition rather than One Nation, while Hanson and Pickering have argued Victorians are rejecting both traditional major parties.
The poll comes amid an accelerating policy contest.
Carroll has shifted Labor’s position on several issues since becoming premier, including announcing a construction royal commission, expanding road spending and this week backing broader police powers to search for knives under a Victorian version of “Jack’s Law”.
The Coalition has campaigned heavily on crime, debt, road maintenance and government accountability.
One Nation has focused on migration, energy, cost of living and opposition to established political institutions while seeking to convert its unusually high polling into a permanent Victorian parliamentary presence.
The electorate also appears deeply unsettled about major infrastructure projects.
The separate Resolve survey found 49 per cent of respondents favoured pausing or cancelling the Suburban Rail Loop, compared with 27 per cent who wanted it to proceed as planned.
The project, state debt, crime and road conditions are all expected to feature heavily during the campaign.
Labor’s challenge is particularly striking when compared with its position four years ago.
The party won a landslide in 2018 and another comfortable majority in 2022. It has governed Victoria continuously since 2014 and for most of the period since 1999.
Carroll now has only a short period to convince voters that his leadership represents more than a change of personnel.
His government has repeatedly argued that the new premier is changing direction where necessary while protecting Labor policies on health, education, TAFE and cost-of-living support.
The Coalition is asking voters to treat the election as a judgment on 12 years of Labor government rather than Carroll’s few months as premier.
One Nation is asking them to reject both.
The September polling suggests all three messages are finding an audience.
What it does not establish is the November result.
With preferential voting, One Nation contesting every lower-house district, a large undecided vote and many individual seats likely to behave differently from the statewide numbers, the Victorian election remains considerably more complicated than a conventional Labor-versus-Coalition race.
But the message for Labor from the latest surveys is clear: after dominating Victorian politics for more than a decade, it is now fighting an election in which its primary vote is sitting behind both of its principal rivals in at least one major poll — and Ben Carroll has little more than two months to change that picture.
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