The Coalition leads in Victoria but falls short of a majority

The Coalition would win 43 of Victoria's 88 lower-house seats if the state voted today, two short of a majority, according to our projection. Labor would fall from the 56 seats it won in 2022 to 26, One Nation would take 13 from none, and the Greens would win 6. No party wins a majority in 64 per cent of our 2,000 simulated elections. Victorians vote on 28 November.

The Coalition is the largest party in 69 per cent of the simulations and wins outright in 30 per cent. Labor is largest in 24 per cent and keeps its majority in 6 per cent. The ranges are wide: 29 to 52 seats for the Coalition in 80 per cent of runs, 12 to 42 for Labor and 3 to 30 for One Nation.

The polls

Our average takes each pollster's latest state poll within 60 days of the newest, with equal weight. Four qualify: Resolve Strategic for The Age (ending 10 October), RedBridge Group with Accent Research for the Australian Financial Review (8 October), Freshwater Strategy for the Herald Sun (28 September) and DemosAU with Premier National (20 September). Together they put the Coalition on 29.2 per cent, Labor on 24.5, One Nation on 22.3 and the Greens on 14.9. In 2022 Labor won 36.7 per cent of first preferences and the Coalition 34.3. One Nation, which stood in few districts, took 0.3.

Labor's two-party vote against the Coalition averages 46.2 per cent across the three pollsters that publish one, against 55 at the last election. The pollsters agree on the order but not on the gap. RedBridge's last three Victorian polls had Labor on 43 or 44, the lowest of any pollster in the same weeks; DemosAU's latest had 48 and Freshwater's 46.6.

Labor's fall began before One Nation appeared in the state polls. Through 2025 the Coalition led almost every Victorian poll, and in late 2025 it was polling between 36 and 40 per cent, with Labor between 28 and 31. Pollsters began reporting a One Nation figure in February 2026. Since then the Coalition's share has dropped by about nine points and Labor's by about five. On these numbers One Nation has drawn more from the Coalition than from Labor, although first preferences alone cannot show who switched to whom.

How Victorian polls have done

Our database holds final-poll averages for four Victorian elections. In 2022 they were close: Labor 37.4 per cent against a result of 37.0, the Coalition 34.4 against 34.4, and Labor's two-party vote 54.1 against 55.0. In 2018 they missed: Labor's first preferences were 39.8 against 42.9, and its two-party vote 54.1 against 57.3, an understatement of 3.2 points. In 2010 and 2014 the two-party figure was within half a point. The Greens were overstated at all four, by 3.8 points in 2010 and 3.0 in 2014.

Across eight Victorian and New South Wales elections since 2010, final polls missed each group by 1.2 points on average. Our projection corrects for the pattern, adding 0.6 points to Labor, 0.4 to One Nation and others, and taking 0.8 off the Greens. That lifts Labor's two-party vote to 46.5.

None of the four current pollsters has a Victorian record in our ratings, which are built on federal elections. At the 2025 federal election DemosAU, graded B provisional on 62, had One Nation 2.6 points too high. RedBridge, B provisional on 65, had it 1.6 points too high. Freshwater, C provisional on 46, had One Nation 1.6 points too high and the Coalition 5.2 points too high. Resolve, a C on 47, had Labor 2.4 points too low on average at two federal elections. One election each is thin evidence, but none of these firms has yet understated One Nation.

One Nation, federal and state

One Nation's federal poll average was 7.8 per cent in May 2025, the month of the federal election, where it won 6.4. It reached 25.1 in February 2026 and 26.7 in September, and our federal projection now has it as the largest party on 64 seats. Its Victorian state figure, 22.3, is about four points lower than its federal average of 26.5.

That gap looks like a difference between states rather than between state and federal voting. YouGov's federal polls, broken down for Victoria, have had One Nation between 21 and 26 per cent since August, close to the state figure. In New South Wales, our state average has it at 26.9.

Where its vote would land matters more than its size. One Nation had no candidate in most Victorian districts in 2022, so our model gives it one in each, carrying its full statewide change. Its projected gains are mostly Labor seats on the outer suburban fringe: Melton, St Albans, Point Cook, Greenvale, Kororoit, Sydenham, Cranbourne and the two Narre Warrens. It also gains Morwell and Mildura from the Coalition. In seven of its 13 projected seats its chance is below one in two, so small shifts would change the count. In Pakenham, where its state leader Warren Pickering is standing, according to Michelle Grattan in The Conversation, our projection gives the Coalition 55 per cent and One Nation 44.

The campaign

Labor has changed leader since the polls turned. Ben Carroll became premier on 28 July after Jacinta Allan withdrew from a leadership contest and resigned, and Jess Wilson has led the Liberals since November 2025, according to Wikipedia. Grattan wrote that Carroll had said "I am not Daniel Andrews". Labor's vote has not risen since: it has been 24 or 25 per cent in every poll since mid-August.

Resolve's September poll had Wilson ahead as preferred premier on 28 per cent, with Carroll on 20 and Pickering on 8, AAP reported. The Coalition needs at least 16 more seats to govern alone, the agency said.

Independents are also trying again in the inner east. AAP reported that Climate 200 is backing campaigns in Kew, Hawthorn and Mornington. Our projection gives the Coalition at least 98 per cent in all three, but it starts from the 2022 result and cannot see a campaign that has not yet shown up in the polls.

The arithmetic leaves the Coalition as the likeliest largest party and One Nation as the likeliest holder of the balance. Many of those seats are close. In 18 of the 33 that change hands in our projection, the winner takes 52 per cent or less of the final two, so a polling miss the size of 2018's would redraw the map.