Labor is staggering towards an election day wipeout, with the party’s primary support slumping to its lowest level in almost two years, the latest Resolve Political Monitor survey reveals.
Voters are abandoning Ben Carroll’s government in favour of Jess Wilson and the Coalition, the poll indicates, while support for One Nation remains unchanged. This leaves Labor, on a statewide basis, running third in a historic three-way contest just weeks out from the next election.
If voter sentiment was replicated on November 28, this would likely deliver the Coalition a clear majority and reduce Labor, the party of government for all but four years this century, to a parliamentary rump.
This undermines Labor’s central campaign pitch that the Liberal and National parties can only govern with the help of Pauline Hanson’s populist movement.
The survey of 1000 respondents conducted between November 2 and November 7 – a period which included the Reserve Bank’s Cup Day decision to increase the cash rate for a fifth time this year – put primary support for Labor at just 22 per cent. This matches the nadir recorded by former premier Jacinta Allan in January 2025 .
When Carroll successfully challenged Allan for the leadership in July and became Victoria’s third premier in three years, Labor’s primary support under Allan was 27 per cent.
Resolve founder Jim Reed said the results of this month’s survey, just three weeks out from election day, were ominous for Victoria’s governing party of the past 12 years.
“Any hope Labor had that the change to Carroll would turn their fortunes around has been dashed,” Reed said.
“He may not be hated in the same way as Allan, but his personal ratings and Labor’s vote have only gone once way since he became leader – down.”
By comparison, primary support for the Coalition between October and November increased 2 percentage points to 30 per cent, though this remains well down from the 39 per cent recorded in December, before the rise of One Nation.
Reed said Wilson and the Coalition were in the box seat to win the election in their own right. “It’s a bandwagon effect, where the majority wanting change are increasingly seeing the opposition as the preferred agent of change,” he said.
Some of the reasons offered by people for wanting to see a change in government were scathing.
“The lies and corruption over the last six years means I can’t bring myself to vote for them again,” one voter told Resolve. Another remarked: “Looking back, we should have voted them out immediately after the COVID fiasco.”
Carroll’s personal likeability also continues to tank, dropping from minus 11 in October to minus 16, while Wilson has gained a point over the past month to now enjoy a rating of 24.
Only one in five voters think Labor will stay in majority government after the election, compared to two months ago, when one in four people believed this would happen.
The collapsing support for Labor within the Resolve poll published by The Age – a trend consistent with other surveys – increases pressure on Carroll to take up any opportunity he has to challenge Wilson, including Thursday night’s free-to-air televised leaders debate proposed by Nine.
Despite agreeing to the original offer of a three-way debate with Wilson and One Nation’s Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, on Monday Carroll was refusing to debate Wilson head-to-head. Nine is the owner of this masthead.
When asked whether Victorians deserved to see a contest of ideas between the two leaders, Carroll said: “It was put before me as a three-way leader’s debate. You talk about opinion polls, look where the polls have One Nation.”
Initially, Wilson refused to share a stage with Pickering, saying that only she or Carroll would lead Victoria’s next government.
Despite the Resolve findings, the election remains unpredictable in a number of seats, where experts are predicting close three- , four- and even five-cornered contests.
Reed said a breakdown of voting intentions according to geographic regions and indicative preferences explains why the Coalition was overwhelmingly favoured to form government after November 28.
In four of the eight regions which comprise Victoria’s upper house electorates, the Coalition has taken a commanding lead over both Labor and One Nation. In a further two regions, in Melbourne’s northern and southern suburbs, the Coalition is running second.
The indicative preference flows of survey respondents shows that in both scenarios, the Coalition is on track to receive about three-quarters of the votes from the party which finishes third. If this pattern is replicated in the lower house on election day, the Coalition should secure a thumping result in most parts of the state.
When respondents were asked about their attitude towards the Liberal and National parties governing in partnership with One Nation, voters were less spooked than Labor strategists might have expected, as almost half of all respondents (48 per cent) said they were comfortable with the idea. Thirty-eight per cent said they were uncomfortable with the prospect.
However, when asked about their attitude towards Labor governing in coalition with the Greens, the result flipped, with 38 per cent of voters saying they were comfortable with the idea and half saying they were not.
Carroll has declared he will “throw the keys back” over forming government with the Greens, and Wilson has ruled out governing in coalition with One Nation. She has not ruled out relying on the minor party for confidence and supply.
“Many voters would undoubtedly like to see a clear win in the form of a majority government, but it’s instructive that most Liberal-National and One Nation voters are comfortable with a coalition of the two, let alone a less formal guarantee of supply,” Reed said.
“Labor’s scare campaign on that front has fallen flat.”
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