state-by-state pendulum

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By popular demand (!), my state-by-state pendulum (pendula?) for 2010 is up (big PDF), just in time for the election.  550px wide JPG version is inline, below.

This follows the same formatting I used in the 2007 edition.

We start with the 2PP ALP vote shares recorded at the last election (incorporating changes from electoral redistributions, as computed by the AEC), subtract those from 50 percent so as to get the results interpretable as swing (i.e., how much 2PP swing is required for the seat to change hands). Color code by party, in the usual way (red is Labor, blue is Liberal/Country Liberal, green is National, and black is independent), with party reflecting the party of the present incumbent. I have also scaled the vertical axis non-linearly, so as to devote more of the graph to the politically interesting region around the no-swing mark.

There are also reference lines showing Labor’s best showing (since 1949) in each of the states. Note how close VIC & QLD in 2007 are to Labor’s best ever showing in those states. VIC is threatening to swing towards Labor and perhaps post a “best ever” result for Labor there. Contrast QLD, which seems like it is reverting to type.

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