The ACT Senate race is pointing towards a boilover, with two new polls commissioned by climate-focused fundraising group Climate 200 showing ACT Liberal senator Zed Seselja and independent candidate David Pocock virtually neck and neck.
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Based on the polling given exclusively to The Canberra Times, the former Wallabies captain has passed The Greens to poll in the third position just behind Senator Seselja, leaving the incumbent in peril of losing on preferences.
Polling in individual seats is not always reliable, but the voter intention polling by Labor leaning pollsters Redbridge group shows a significant shift towards Mr Pocock from the last ACT Senate polling published a month ago. The voting shift appears to have come from Labor, Greens and previously undecided voters.
It's a wake up call to all ACT Senate candidates roughly two weeks out from polling day and it comes after the Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned on Thursday that a vote for independents is a "vote for chaos" and after Mr Pocock was pointedly targeted by conservative political group Advance Australia.
The "robocall" poll of 1064 people on April 23 and April 24 shows Senator Seselja settling below the quota at 25 per cent of the redistributed primary vote. He received 33.3 per cent of the vote in 2013, 33.1 per cent in 2016 and dipped below the quota to 32.4 per cent in 2019.
But Mr Pocock is now polling at 21 per cent overall and he is most popular with people aged 40 to 59 years at 26 per cent. That's a leap from the first ACT Senate race poll published in early April which showed the independent challenger at 11 and 13 per cent. It shows him taking a significant bite into the votes of other candidates, although fellow independent candidate Kim Rubenstein remains unchanged at 6 per cent.
"If Pocock was polling ahead of the Greens he would be in trouble," ABC election analyst Antony Green told The Canberra Times last month.
"Because Green preferences 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 polling shows Mr Pocock would receive the highest percentage of second preferences at 24 per cent, while Senator Gallagher would get 23 per cent and Senator Seselja would get 13 per cent.
If Senator Seselja loses his seat in 2022, it would be the first time in 47 years that the Liberal party has not represented the ACT in the Federal Parliament.
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The Redbridge polling shows ALP frontbencher Katy Gallagher leading the race but below the quota with 27 per cent of the vote. That's down from her polling of 35 per cent last month and the 2019 result of 39.3 per cent.
The Greens with candidate Tjanara Goreng Goreng are shown in the poll to be no longer in the stronger position to leapfrog Senator Seselja, at 11 per cent. That's down from 15 per cent last month.
Clive Palmer's UAP candidate James Savoulidis is at 6 per cent of the vote, while 8.4 per cent are unsure.
There is a 3.9 percentage point margin of error for the robocall poll. The candidates and their affiliations were all named.
To win a seat in the ACT Senate, 33.3 per cent of the vote is required. Preference flows will be crucial to the outcome.
As revealed last week for ACT Senate how to vote cards, Labor has decided to preference the party of Mr Pocock second ahead of The Greens. As well, Mr Pocock and fellow high profile independent Kim Rubenstein are encouraging an independent voice in Canberra through placing themselves in the "one" position on the Senate ballot and the other party at "two".
The Liberal party is taking the unusual step in 2022 of not advising voter preferences for any other candidate in the territory.
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. However, of the people who say they will vote for Mr Pocock, 22 per cent voted for Labor at the last election, 30 per cent voted for The Greens at the last election, 34 per cent voted for then independent candidate Anthony Pesec and 12 per cent voted for the Liberals.
In the ACT, Climate 200 has given seed money to both Mr Pocock and Professor Rubenstein, a constitutional expert and author, to assist their campaigns.