Aaron Bhatnagar has the results of a push poll which show Rodney Hide statistically tied in Epsom. As he notes, the questions could be leading (though ACT hacks in his comments deny it), but regardless it should sharpen the minds of Labour voters in that seat. As Rodney is constantly reminding people, a victory in Epsom means he and maybe some friends (such as Heather Roy, Muriel Newman and Stephen Franks) get to stay in Parliament. I think stopping that from happening is an excellent reason to cast a candidate vote for Richard Worth.
10 comments:
I/S.
If we had STV voting, would that mean that tactical voting would not be necessary for the electorate vote?
Posted by Anonymous : 8/31/2005 02:03:00 PM
Check out the strategic voting patterns in Epsom last election -
http://www.nzvotes.org/index.cfm/electorates/electorates?id=14
National candidate vote 13563 but party vote only 9499. Labour, UP and NZP picked up the party vote with NZP the big winner. But fewer voted for ACT than for Hide.
Posted by Sock Thief : 8/31/2005 02:35:00 PM
Good call.
ACTs advertising here in Wellington is a disgrace.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Posted by Anonymous : 8/31/2005 02:43:00 PM
Global Guy: pretty much. And adding preferences to the electorate vote is one of the more obvious ways of tweaking MMP.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 8/31/2005 03:04:00 PM
Hmmm.
Strategically, killing Act could be the only good thing National gets out of losing this election. It would let them focus their energies on moving back towards the centre, without the fear that Act (to their right) will eat up their funding.
National seems to have hit the problem the US Republicans have: their funds appear to largely come from a place much further to the political right than their average voter, and that creates stress as they try to pander to a 'base' which is much more right wing than their electorate.
The Republicans seem to cope by just lying about stuff. It says something good about NZ that National has not been able to get away with doing the same: when Brash hmm and haws or National contradicts themselves, they get pulled up on it.
Posted by Icehawk : 8/31/2005 04:25:00 PM
National voters may actually hurt their party long term by not putting ACT to the sword in this election.
One could ask the question whether the fragmentation of the left vote (ie maori/green/UF etc) doesn't result in a rightward movement of the major parties as well as the potental for labour to shed the far left contingent when required.
Posted by Genius : 8/31/2005 07:46:00 PM
It's NOT a push poll. It has a high margin of error (5%) but it is otherwise the result of asking a straight "which candidate would you vote for if the election were held today" question.
Posted by Blair : 8/31/2005 10:40:00 PM
At 11.99% it's not as though there is a lot of Labour candidate supporters in Epsom to start with, with that tactic.
This poll is the continuation of a trend which has seen Rodney gaining on a daily basis. We expect that to continue so no amount of Labour hijinks will affect the result.
Also that sort of tactic could have the reverse effect in Epsom. Voters are overwhelmingly right leaning and no how to smell a Labour party rat.
Posted by Mike Collins : 9/01/2005 05:55:00 PM
I'm still in favor of better the devil you know. I might not like act but considering who else might fill the void left by act (destiny new zealand being a contender in the long term) perhaps keeping a relatively sane right wing party as the nats coalition partner might not be such a bad thing.
Posted by Stephanie : 9/02/2005 12:02:00 AM
Um... Labour voters in Epsom?
Huh?
Posted by Anonymous : 9/02/2005 12:08:00 AM
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