Just who are the soft Labor voters we list in every Morgan Poll – those voters who say they intend to support the ALP, but also believe that the country is headed in the right direction?

They’re the key to victory – for both the government and the opposition – but what else do we know about them.

Special analysis of the August face-to-face Morgan Polls finds that 18% of all electors and 38% of all Labor supporters are soft Labor voters.

They are:

  • More likely to be male than female. More than one in five – 21% – of male electors are classified as soft Labor voters compared to 15% of female electors. Forty-four percent of all male Labor supporters are soft voters, compared to 31.5% of female Labor supporters.
  • More likely to live in a capital city. Twenty percent of all city Labor supporters are soft Labor voters, compared to 15% of their country cousins.
  • Sandgropers. Western Australia has the higher proportion of soft Labor voters (47%) followed by Tasmania (41%) and Victoria (40%). New South Wales has the lowest proportion of soft Labor voters (34%).
  • More likely to be younger. Twenty-four percent of 18-24 year olds are soft Labor voters, 19% of 25-34 and 35-49 year olds, 16.5% of 50-64 year olds and 14.5% of those aged 65 and over.

Soft Labor voters are more likely to be younger males living in a capital city. Was the strip club visit a stroke of genius?

Maybe, but the Government has two great assets. Pollster Gary Morgan says:

For the Coalition to be re-elected, it needs to concentrate their efforts on convincing soft Labor voters to swing back to the Government. Roy Morgan Qualitative Research has identified for some time that experience and a successful track record in managing the economy are the two main reasons electors vote for the LNP.

These are the main findings of special Morgan Poll analysis, conducted face-to-face with 2,938 electors in all electorates throughout Australia during the weekends of August 2007.