2026 – Stafford By-election – Result Commentary

On this page I will provide commentary on the results of the 2026 Stafford state by-election in Queensland. When I get the chance. Use the links below to navigate between the four results pages that I will be updating.

Links: Result Summary | Commentary | Count Centre Summaries | Count Centre Results

Some Preference Graphs

In my endless search for the best way to illustrate preferences, here’s a bar chart that shows the composition of the two-candidate preferred vote for Hammond (LNP) and Richmond (Labor) by source.

The final two-candidate preferred percentages are shown on the right, LNP 48.7% and Labor 51.3%. Each slice along the two bars shows a percentage of vote by source. So on the Labor bar, 30.8% was Labor primary vote, there were small numbers from low polling candidates before 3.1% as preferences from Independent Parry and 12.7% from Green preferences delivered victory to Labor.

And the full distribution of preferences has now been released. Labor was still 10.9% behind when the Greens candidates was the last excluded.

Noon, Friday 22 May – further postal votes have been added and, as is the pattern with postal votes, Labor’s result has not been as bad as for the first batch of postals counted on election. night. Overall Labor’s vote has risen to 51.4% after preferences, a swing to the LNP of 4.0%. Labor has closed a 9.5% gap on first preferences thanks to receiving 86.5% of Greens preferences despite the Greens distributing a how-to-vote with no preference recommendation, and 81.9% of preferences from left-wing Independent Liam Parry.

The closing time for the return of postal votes is 6pm on Tuesday 26 May after which a full distribution of preferences will take place to officially determine the winner.

Monday 18 May, 9:30pm – figures updated with some extra votes but mainly with check counts of Saturday’s results completed.

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10:40pm – and now the preference count for Chermside South EVC, ending the count for tonight. The swing against Labor at both EVCs was only 2.7%. In another sign about how difficult it is to assess how Pre-Poll vote trends will play out, the swing against Labor was smallest in the two EVCs than across polling places. At the 2024 state election, the swing against Labor was bigger with pre-polls than on the day.

Labor looked gone for all money early in the night but the big swings on primary votes came back with a good performance on preferences.

The main thing to be counted now is outstanding postal votes. These should favour the LNP, but the first batch of postals has already been counted and traditionally this is always the worst batch for Labor. Barring some error in tonight’s counting, or a strong anti-Labor trend in the remaining postals, then Labor should retain Stafford.

10:35 – Chermside South EVC has reported. The gap on primaries is only 7% which means there is a good chance Labor will record a majority after preferences and confirm its lead at the end of counting tonight.

10:20pm – the table below of preference flows has been updated all night on the results page but I thought I’d republish it here to explain why Labor has reversed the big swing against it on first preferences. Despite an open how-to-vote, Green preferences have flowed more satrongly to Labor at the by-election than at the 2024 election, 86.7% compared to 83.7%. Overall Labor is receiving 71.7% of preferences compared to 70.7% from a smaller pool in 2024.

Preference Flows

		Prefs to Labor		Prefs to LNP
Candidate Name	Party	Votes	Pct	Votes	Pct
Jacqueline Verne	Legalise Cannabis	456	59.9	305	40.1
Damian Smart	Independent	178	36.9	304	63.1
Daniel Selff	Libertarians	95	36.0	169	64.0
Liam Parry	Independent	742	81.9	164	18.1
Jess Lane	The Greens	3173	86.7	486	13.3
Lucy O’Brien	Animal Justice	335	63.1	196	36.9
Alan Denaro	Family First	136	25.5	398	74.5
Total Preferences		5115	71.7	2022	28.3

9:55pm – The Stafford EVC saw a swing after preferences against Labor of only 2.7%. The Returning Office EVC, which has been replaced for the by-election by the nearby Chermside South EVC, recorded 54.0% Labor two-party preferred in 2024. If Labor can repeat the swing seen at Stafford EVC in the Chermside EVC , then Labor will increase its lead to probably be far enough ahead to withstand a bad result on outstanding Postal votes.

9:35pm – I hear that the early voting centres are being counted sequentially rather than in parallel. So Stafford EVC is done and dusted and they are now counting Chermside South EVC. Could be a long night.

9:15pm – Labor has recorded a majority of the vote at the Stafford EVC which puts Labor ahead on the preference count. The Chermside South EVC looks set to determine who leads at the end of the night. If Labor wins from so far behind on primaries then I think we might see a fresh impetus for the government to bring forward the legislation to re-introduce optional preferential voting.

9:05pm – I’ve switched to using actual counts and abandoned projections. I think the projections are too optimistic for Labor. I’ll stick to using simple tallies and percentages for the rest of the evening.

9:00pm – at the moment on raw numbers it in 50:50 but I project Labor will finish on 50.8%. I think this projection is over-optimistic for Labor as it corrects for Labor doing well on Absent votes in 2024. There won’t be any Absents for the by-election so I think 50:50 is a better measure of the current position.

8:55pm – I have three models of the result. One has the LNP on 50.4% after preferences, a second has a 50:50 split and the third has Labor on 50.5%. It’s what happens with a close count.

8:45pm – because you get very good preference flow data on the night in Queensland, you can project what the final primaries will produce after preferences. At the moment it has Labor narrowly ahead. The result is looking closer than earlier in the evening. At the moment I’m not sure whether the raw numbers are a more reliable predictor than calculating swing based on matched polling places.

8:25pm – first Early Vote Centre wasn’t as bad for Labor as expected.

8:15pm – Labor has not done too badly on Postals. I still think Labor’s primary vote is too low to win but they are stubbornly hanging in there with the preference count.

8:05 – Labor are doing better than I thought on preferences so at the moment the race is close. Pre-polls and Postals to come and the LNP position will be helped by them. I would still have my money on the LNP winning.

7:55pm – I do not believe Labor can close the primary vote gap to the LNP on preferences but will wait to get another preference count or two to be certain.

7:40pm – Labor heading for defeat at this stage.

7:30pm – at this stage Labor looks headed for defeat though the preference counts reported so far are not as bad as the swing against Labor on primary votes.

7:13pm – figures are looking very bad for Labor. First preferences are projecting under 30% with LNP in the low 40s. Not enough preferences to close that gap.

7:05pm – first two polling places were bad news for Labor with a big drop on first preferences. No preference counts reported at this stage.

7:00pm – all telephone and mobile figures at the moment so nothing much can be inferred. A small drop in primary vote for Labor and the Greens but some of this may be due to there be9ing more candidates at the by-election. A lot more useful numbers should start arriving soon.

6:35pm – second result from telephone early voting so again not a very useful guide.

6:20pm – first result from the mobile polling. They are votes taken in retirement homes and always heavily favour the LNP.

6:05pm – on the results page I’m publishing a table that summarises the preference flows as the results come in. The figures will be zero until some preference counts arrive.

5:35pm – some statistics on votes already cast. There have been 13,644 Early votes cast over the past fortnight representing 33.0% of enrolment. There have been 3,728 postal vote packs returned and accepted for counting representing 9.0% of enrolment with more to return. Those votes represent about half the likely turnout for the by-election so there are probably at most around 17,000 votes likely to have been cast today. These will be counted tonight, as will the Early votes, though they will come in much later given their volume.

5:30pm – welcome to my coverage of tonight’s Stafford by-election count. You can check out background to the by-election on my Stafford by-election preview page.