From the Guardian:
Tony Abbott’s “sex appeal” candidate, Fiona Scott, is poised for a landslide victory in the litmus-test western Sydney seat of Lindsay with a stunning 60% of the primary vote, according to a Guardian Lonergan poll.
Scott’s huge lead over the sitting member, the assistant treasurer, David Bradbury, who has held the marginal seat since 2007, surprised even the pollster.
“Given the size of the swing, we have triple-checked the data and we are very confident this poll is accurate. We asked respondents how they voted last federal election. When we model this historic data we would have predicted Bradbury to be elected over Scott with a two-candidate preferred vote of 52%, which is very close to the actual 2010 poll result of 51%,” Lonergan research managing director Chris Lonergan told Guardian Australia.
The poll, with a margin of error of 3.7%, was taken the night after an exuberant Abbott campaigning in the mortgage-belt seat likened his candidate to former Liberal member Jackie Kelly because they were both ”young”, “feisty” and “I can probably say they have a bit of sex appeal”.
It showed Scott with 60% of the primary vote, compared with 43% at the last election, and Bradbury on just 32%, compared with 45% in 2010.
…a 12% decline in Bradbury’s primary vote according to the Lonergan poll suggests the Rudd honeymoon is waning in the west, and raises big questions about the effectiveness of Labor’s campaign.
Thirty per cent of Lindsay voters said the leadership change from Gillard to Rudd had made them less likely to vote Labor, 23% said it made them more likely and 47% said it made no difference.
…“I have been working in market research for 20 years, and this is one of the biggest swings that I have seen. There are a lot of disenfranchised Labor voters in the Lindsay electorate. Just 65% of those who voted for Bradbury in 2010 intend to vote for him again in September. In comparison, 92% of those who voted for Scott intend to vote for her again,” Lonergan said.
