Australia's labor party loses running on Democrat agenda

Richard Fernandez:

Australia's Labor party was supposed to have won yesterday's election handily. Their surefire formula for victory of increased taxes, heightened spending on climate change and engagement with China would bring in the votes. Then the unexpected happened: Labor lost.

Australia’s Liberal-National Coalition government has returned to power in the 2019 federal election, despite polls consistently predicting victory for the opposition Labor Party. The most surprising result for Labor came from the state of Queensland. Now, many people are comparing the shock result to the 2016 US election and the UK's Brexit referendum, which both defied opinion polls.

Few if any of the pollsters predicted it. The resulting bafflement was expressed by one tweet: "How could polls, from every company, for months including exit polls taken on election day not just be wrong but spectacularly wrong?" It was a massive intelligence failure and one worthy of examination. All political parties presumably pay for accurate polling, even if it shows them losing, because possession of the true facts is the only way to adjust their strategy. But after three failed predictions in three major Anglosphere elections, it may be time to ask how the polls got it wrong.
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Sometimes pollsters hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.  To get elections so spectacularly wrong one has to have a prejudice in favor of one party and animus toward the other.  In the US that animus was clear.  Those on the left thought that Trump was crazy and that his supporters were deplorable.

We shall soon see whether the Democrats can sell increased taxes and increased control freak government to deal with perceived climate change.

BTW, 54 polls in a row indicated the race was unlosable for the Labor party.