An analysis of how YouGov's vote and seat projections fared in showing the reality of the 2025 Australian federal election
YouGov was the most accurate pollster in the 2025 Australian federal election, with our MRP providing the joint-most accurate projections of the national ‘two party preferred’ vote and by far the most accurate public electorate-level projections.
Our final call model had central seat estimates of 84 for Labor, 47 for the Coalition, 14 Independents, the Greens on 3, and 1 each for Katter’s Australian Party and the Centre Alliance in what we expected would be a strong result for Anthony Albanese’s party.
Although the final count has not yet completed, and while some seats remain in doubt, it is clear that Labor has won a historic majority and in so doing inflicted a record defeat on the Coalition. Currently, Labor has won in 93 seats and could well pick up more. The Coalition have currently won 41 seats, and could well reach 44 themselves.
No seat model other than YouGov’s MRP anticipated a landslide for Labor. While other projections, models, and commentators almost unanimously expected the party to be the largest in a hung parliament, our MRP anticipated a substantial Labor win with a clear, double-digit majority. Even then, the party has significantly outperformed our model’s most optimistic expectations for them.
The national ‘two party preferred’ vote – which represents the nationwide balance of preference between Australia’s two largest parties – is estimated to settle at somewhere around 54.5%-55% to Labor and 44%-45.5% to the Coalition. The projected figures from our MRP model are the joint-most accurate in this regard, at 53%-47%.
Labor’s overperformance relative to our MRP model projections – which were by far the most optimistic and most clear in anticipating a big Labor win – is in part driven by a higher-than-anticipated primary vote share for Albanese’s party across electorates. YouGov will look closely at this error to understand how we could have captured the extent of Labor’s eventual victory even more accurately.
YouGov’s MRP approach has seen similar success in elections across the globe. In 2023, it correctly called Spain’s hung parliament, in 2024 it was the most accurate model in the UK general election and earlier this year it again proved successful in federal elections in both Germany and Canada.
Why our results are so accurate
As we have seen in many places across the world, electorates are becoming increasingly dynamic and big swings and changes even within campaign periods themselves are becoming more and more common. All of this made our modelling for the 2025 election that bit more difficult and makes our accuracy all the more pleasing.
Three factors make a notable difference in YouGov delivering accurate results.
The first is the quality of our data. Because we own our own panel, we have a unique relationship with the people taking our surveys and instant access to the views and opinions of thousands of Australians. As a result, YouGov has a deep understanding of who they are, which helps us build and execute models at scale which are truly market leading and help us become the most accurate when it comes to both voting intention polling and MRP modelling.
The size and scale of YouGov panels also allows us to check in with voters at great scale and with great regularity, capturing changes in mood and reactions to key events as they unfold throughout campaigns.
Lastly, we are not in competition with other researchers or organisations for access to our data. This means whenever we need to speak to and check in with representative samples of thousands of voters, we can do so immediately and without restriction or delay.
The second is the quality of our expertise. YouGov’s experts in polling, election forecasting, and data science and analytics worked hand-in-hand with experienced colleagues from our panel and data teams to deliver the most accurate results of any pollster in the 2025 election.
The third is the quality of our innovation. Our ground-breaking MRP relies not only on our gold standard data and in-house expertise but also on our use of advanced technology and computing solutions that allows us to put these advantages to full use.
YouGov has been using MRP modelling for almost a decade. Subsequently, we have built up both a track record of success and – crucially – an approach based on a combination of the latest technology and considerable experience. As elections and electorates have evolved, we have updated and improved our MRP models to keep up with them – a crucial component in our continuing ability to get it right.
Of course, as a data and analytics business we constantly look for ways to improve our methods and we will be doing a thorough review of any areas where we can take learnings from for next time to make our MRP even more accurate and how we can apply our success into other areas of YouGov’s work.
As always, we will work with our panel, engaging them to ensure they continue to share the breadth and diversity of their thoughts, behaviours and opinions so that the people sharing their data with us keep on representing the complex nature of the public.
