New Englanders are most looking for honesty, a brain at work, and good communication skills when they consider which candidate to vote for in an election.
The results of our first short weekly poll for the election is one of the tougher subjects – this very uncertain stuff about the things people consider when they vote. The reality is that most people don’t know and don’t actively think about it very much. Some don’t think about it at all, and probably wouldn’t show up to vote if not for the fine.
The respondents to our poll demonstrated the full array of emotions and thoughts on this issue, with their wants and desires as diverse as strength of character, passionate belief in regional Australia, and religious values (with respondents both opposed and supportive of strong religious beliefs). Integrity and honesty were high on the wish list, as well as having common sense and intelligence, a bit of humility.
“Honesty, commitment and being approachable and available would be awesome. Someone that really cares.”
“Empathy for disadvantaged members of community.”
“Their desire to make life better for those in electorate not just further their own ambitions.”
“What they hope to achieve, what their values are, whether they will try to represent their electorate. Integrity is very important but hard to assess until the candidate has been in parliament for a while.”
As is usually the case, many are very clear on what they don’t like.
“I do not like putting down the opposing candidate to make themselves appear more appealing
“Can’t be deeply religious”
“My dealbreaker is when a candidate espouses a particular line and then demonstrates the opposite.”
“A person who does not spread misinformation and/or disinformation in order to ‘promote’ personal opinions.”
Independence was also high on the wish list – not necessarily being an Independent candidate, but being willing to stick it to the party when it is not in our interests.
“The values that they live by. Whether they can vote for decisions on their own to better represent their community, rather than follow a party line.”
“Whether they genuinely care for the area or just the party line.”
“Whether the candidate seeks to be a genuine representative of the electorate; not a party ‘puppet’ or ‘lobbyist’ for vested interests.”
This was reflected when we asked people to choose from a list which things they cared about, with ability to effectively represent the issue right at the top along side issue positions. Just over half said they don’t care about party affiliation or endorsements, and three quarters said meeting the candidate personally is not important.
The ability to communicate clearly was the only personal appeal factor that all our respondents considered to some degree, with intelligence usually considered by 87% of respondents. At the other end of the scale, only 1% admitted to usually considering how attractive a person is, but half considered how presentable they are.
We asked a series of questions about Independent candidates, not only because of the New England’s historic willingness to vote Independent, but because of the chatter in the press about the Teal style independents targeting regional seats. 82% of respondents said they have voted for an Independent in the past, and more than half said they would vote Independent if they were genuinely the best candidate.
Because of the aforementioned national chatter about Teals and regional seats, we asked directly if it would have any impact on your vote if a candidate was supported by Climate 200. The polarising reaction is not as strong as it was in polling KORE CSR did on this a couple of years ago, but it’s still there, with 22% more likely, and 20% less likely, to vote for a candidate if they knew they had received money from Climate 200. 20% said they would not vote for a Climate 200 supported candidate under any circumstances.
Now, these figures will absolutely get misinterpreted so allow me to say a few things:
- This is not a representative sample of Australian voters. This is a decent sample of New Englanders (a bit light on the under 35s but that’s normal) and shouldn’t be presented as anything else. That doesn’t make it invalid either, it just is what it is.
- In the absence of an actual candidate that would trigger the very complex and multi-layered assessment that most people do when choosing who to vote for, the true and final vote decision cannot be modelled. This is a valid test of the reaction to the Climate 200 brand and model of funding campaigns, not really a test of vote decision.
- This data does not indicate that a Climate 200 candidate would be more or less likely to win any particular seat. To do that you’d need to cross tab with vote intention. That is to say, it matters not one jot if the ‘less likely’ people were already voting for the Nats, and the same if the ‘more likely’ people were already voting for anyone on the left.
As it so happens, I did do the cross tabulation with vote intention. And I’m not going to show you the breakdown as I’ve decided not to publish any vote intention figures (at least until we are well into the formal campaign), but 100% of those who were more likely to vote for a candidate supported by Climate 200 were intending to vote Labor or Green. The biggest cohort in the ‘not under any circumstances’ group were intending to vote Independent. That doesn’t bode well, but there’s no Climate 200 supported candidate (that I know of) in New England, so it’s all just academic anyway.
One other final note mentioned by a couple of respondents without any prompting:
“A woman representing New England would be a welcome change.”
Hear, hear.
The next poll is on The Nationals. Click here to take the survey now, it closes at midnight on Sunday.
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