Denis Ginnivan

The New Swing Voter: Someone Switching Within Their Side Bloc voting (or bloc politics) is when voters don’t really “cross the aisle” anymore. They move within an ideological political ecosytem, a progressive bloc (Labor/Greens/Teals/left-leaning independents and minors) and a conservative bloc (Coalition/One Nation and right-leaning minors). Switching mostly happens inside the bloc, not between blocs. There is some switching between blocks but it’s no longer the main game. We at RedBridge have been socialising this trend since 2022. It’s why Labor was able to win with a record low primary. It’s why the old story, that elections are decided by a persuadable “median voter”, swayed by leaders, campaign stunts, or the loudest political commentators on social media, is increasingly nostalgia. This is supercharged by Millennials and Gen Z, who are more psychologically sorted, more values-anchored, and far less tolerant of “preference borrowing” across the divide. But we’re now seeing the same sorting dynamics creep into Gen X: Liberal voting Gen X men drifting deeper into the right ecosystem (towards One Nation), and Labor leaning Gen X leaking into the left ecosystem (Greens, independents, minor parties). The movement isn’t left or right, it’s increasingly within tribe. Ben Ansell nails the strategic implication whilst writing about this trend in the UK. The main campaign objective is bloc management, hold your coalition together, win back your “don’t knows”, and force the contest onto issues your side can actually unite around. If you choose the wrong battleground, you don’t just lose swing voters, you trigger internal defections. These defections hurt because both major parties now have a structural problem with their base, so losing too many within the bloc can allow your opponent to take advantage of that if they succeed in keeping their primary vote stable. Bottom line is the age of “one speech to win the middle” is fading. The age of coalition discipline and bloc strategy is already here. Link to Ben’s yarn in the thread.

Morrison was given his marching orders from Tourism Australia by Fran Bailey. He was accused of writing contract briefs that would only suit one supplier - his mates at the advertising firm Saatchi. The tenders were tailored to suit just them. Bailey called him out on it.