Matt Liddy and Cristen Tilley were the original reporting and editing team. With Georgina Piper on design and Ashley Kyd on development, they illustrated a complex analysis of recent electoral trends in Australia. Understanding the election results reveals powerful new trends in voting changes. The maps released for the first time this week show the party-vote swing across elections.
These maps, particularly the “Trumpet of Patriots” map, tell a powerful story about changing voter attitudes. They look at how the United Australia Party did in 2022 to how similar might be the Trumpet of Patriots in 2025. Currently, every hexagon on this map represents an opposition electorate. This design creates a pretty striking visual that highlights swings in voter opinion. These hexagons are [ f ] colored by state or territory, lending a geographic context to the changes in dynamics as they evolve.
An upward arrow on the map indicates that more voters selected a ‘1’ for that party’s or independent’s candidate. That’s a 13% increase over the final election outcome from last December. A downward-pointing arrow indicates that party’s first-preference votes have fallen. In instances where a party did not contest an electorate in either 2022 or 2025, that specific area is displayed blank on the map. Note that arrows will only show up after over 5 percent of the vote has been reported in. This provides an early look at voter trends across the country.
Notably, pre-poll votes usually trend very differently than the early count. Take these maps all with a grain of salt. The electoral landscape is constantly shifting. Vote share for independents is the cumulative percent of votes received by independent candidates in a given electorate. Early projections are subject to change as more votes are counted throughout the night, and first-preference votes alone do not determine who ultimately wins a seat.
The charts continue to refresh live as counting continues. This gives elections observers an unprecedented opportunity to follow changes in voter backing in real-time. This new feature is a fun way to get a live-action view on how voters’ electoral preferences change through the course of the night.
