The Greens are in a stronger position than Mr Pocock to leapfrog the Liberal minister, based on this polling, while independent Kim Rubenstein will need to quickly improve her standing if she is to challenge the major parties.

However, the first published polls covering the ACT senate race for the May election - undertaken in late March and given exclusively to The Canberra Times - show that Senator Seselja, at 25 and 24 per cent of the primary vote, may still be re-elected if sentiment does not shift before polling day with preferences expected to play a big part in the final result.

"He's still in the lead which advantages him," ABC election analyst Antony Green said.

"You need 33 per cent to win a seat in the ACT senate. 24, 25 per cent gets you a long way to that quota, but it leaves you short and at risk of losing on preferences."

The voter intention polling by Labor leaning pollsters Redbridge group show ALP frontbencher Katy Gallagher comfortably reaching the quota with 37 and 35 per cent of the vote. That's down from her 2019 result of 39.3 per cent, but the polls show a bigger dent in the vote for Senator Seselja. He received 33.3 per cent of the vote in 2013, 33.1 per cent in 2016 and dipped below quota to 32.4 per cent in 2019.

The polling also shows the Greens with candidate Tjanara Goreng Goreng, at 14 and 15 per cent, remain the main challenger to the major parties, despite Mr Pocock, at 11 and 13 per cent, shown to take a significant bite into the votes of all candidates.

Mr Pocock, a former Wallabies and ACT Brumbies star player, is shown as a particular threat to the Liberal incumbent as he is seen to be capturing traditional Seselja supporters. He is shown in the voting intention breakdown to cross over in Liberal territory, for example being more popular with male voters at 12 per cent and people who earn more than $120,000 at 19 per cent of the vote.

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The two polls, one of 707 respondents conducted by telephone interviews (CATI) and the other a "robocall" survey of 1331 people on March 24 and March 22 respectively, show independent Kim Rubenstein behind the other challengers at 7 and 6 per cent, while Clive Palmer's UAP shows the power of a massive advertising spend with a significant showing on the robocall poll at 7 per cent with low profile candidate James Savoulidis.

Professor Rubenstein, a constitutional expert and author, is neck and neck with Mr Pocock on the female vote at 8 per cent, but has recorded a low first preference voter intention result with male voters at 3 per cent. The CATI poll shows she rates high with the over 70s vote at 15 per cent.

There is a 4.3 percentage point margin of error for the CATI poll, while margin of error for the robocall poll is 3.3 per cent.

The polls are a wake up call to all ACT senate candidates, particularly to the at risk Senator Seselja, as the official campaign focuses voter attention on the senate race.

"If Pocock was polling ahead of the Greens he would be in trouble," Mr Green told The Canberra Times.

"Because Green references and Labor preferences will flow to the independents. They'll be quite good at sending strong preferences. I'm not sure that independents are going to produce strong enough preferences to elect the Greens."

The abolition of group voting tickets has made it easier for the re-election of major parties. But preferences will play a bigger role in the ACT senate race compared to other jurisdictions due to the smaller size of the ballot. Both Mr Pocock and Professor Rubenstein are running under official party banners to secure more advantageous above the line voting positions on the ballot.

"Under the new Senate system, you expect a lot of exhausted preferences in the Senate, but possibly not in the ACT where voters are instructed to fill in six preferences and there may only be seven or eight columns on the ballot paper," Mr Green said.

"So there is the risk that there would be enough leakage of preferences to the Greens to defeat Zed Seselja on those numbers. So the more groups on the ballot paper, the higher the exhausted rate, the better chances that Seselja would had to have to win from that point."

With the election just days off being called, there is significant capacity for all candidates to capture swing voters with respondents regarded as "unsure" coming in at 10.8 per cent and 11.5 per cent.

But how locked in are these votes? 91.7 per cent of respondents to CATI poll are either "somewhat certain" or "very certain", while 8.3 per cent said they were "not at all certain".

The Redbridge polling for the Simon Holmes a Court led Climate 200, which is backing a national field of independents at the federal election.

In the ACT, Climate 200 has given seed money to both Mr Pocock and Professor Rubenstein to assist their campaigns.

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