Latest news with #independents
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Dem Rep: Trump deploying National Guard ‘only going to make things worse'
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders tells CNNs Dana Bash that President Trump "does not believe in the rule of law" and "thinks he has a right to do anything he wants."
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Andrew Yang reaches out to Musk to collaborate on new political party
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang said he's reached out to Elon Musk in hopes of collaborating on the creation of a new political party, according to a Saturday interview with Politico Magazine. Yang, along with mutual friends, believes the Tesla CEO has what it takes to form a new faction that propels America's strongest leaders. When asked if Musk has responded to his inquiry, Yang told the outlet 'Not yet, but I assume he's been very busy.' 'We have been of the opinion that America needed a new political party for a number of years, and so waiting another 24 hours is nothing,' he added. Musk's push for a new political caucus emerged from his public feud with President Trump over the 'big, beautiful bill.' The tech giant strongly opposed the national debt increase after months of working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut federal spending. Yang, the founder of 'The Forward Party,' said it's political outsiders like Musk who consider non-traditional approaches to the country's problems. 'I want to work with people that recognize that America's political system has gone from dysfunctional to polarizing to even worse. And at this point, the fastest growing political movement in the United States is independents,' Yang said. 'They feel like neither party represents them, and the two-party system is not delivering what they want to see,' he continued. Many people have recently left the Democratic party, including former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who announced she became an independent after seeing political polarization throughout the campaign trail. 'If you look at Musk's politics over the last number of years, he waited in line to meet Barack Obama, he endorsed me in a Democratic cycle, and even earlier in this cycle — 2024 — he was looking for an alternative to Trump,' Yang said. 'There are a number of things that I think Elon shares in common with a lot of other folks I talk to who want to see some kind of middle ground or balance. The problem is: In our two-party system, you get whipsawed either one direction or the other,' he continued. Last year, Musk was a major donor for Republicans but has supported a wide array of candidates like Yang in the past. Now that he's severed ties with the GOP, political hopefuls have been looking to capitalize on the billionaire's powerful funding reserve for future campaigns. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ABC News
6 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Independent Boele wins Bradfield after recount
Independent Nicolette Boele has won the Sydney electorate of Bradfield with a final margin of 26 votes. Ms Boele edged out Liberal Gisele Kapterian after a full recount in the seat.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Major parties barely fend off independent challengers
The major parties appear to have held on to formerly safe seats by the skin of their teeth, but a handful of other electorates remain too close to call. Australians handed Labor a sweeping federal election victory, but several former strongholds looked poised to slip from the party's fingers after independent challengers took the results down to the wire, with less than 100 votes separating the frontrunners at times. But one by one, they fell back into the fold, and on Monday the ABC called the south Canberra and Norfolk Island seat of Bean for Labor candidate David Smith , after a days-long fight against independent Jessie Price. Ms Price hasn't conceded defeat, noting there were still a few thousand votes to count, but she acknowledges a win looked less likely. "Votes are now coming from people outside of the electorate who maybe weren't quite as aware that we had such a different option this election," she told ABC Radio on Monday. "Labor have kind of held on by their fingernails at the end and they are on notice." The blue-ribbon electorate of Bradfield on Sydney's north shore has also gone to a major party after days of counting, with Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian fending off independent Nicolette Boele. It wasn't all bad news for independents. The ABC has called the Melbourne seat of Kooyong for Monique Ryan, giving her a second term. Meanwhile, the Greens have held on to one seat in the lower house after Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the MP for Ryan, beat her Labor challenger. According to the ABC, another four seats remain in doubt, including the southeast Melbourne electorate of Flinders, which was challenged by independent Ben Smith. Monash in eastern Victoria and Longman in Queensland are too close to call, as is Calwell on Melbourne's fringe, where the final pairing of candidates is hard to determine. In the Senate, the coalition appears poised to lose up to five seats to Labor. This could give Labor and the Greens the power to pass legislation without turning to other members of the crossbench. SEAT COUNT IN 2025 FEDERAL ELECTION: THE NUMBERS * Labor - 93 lower house seats (+16 from 2022 election total) as of Monday morning, with 83.5 per cent of votes counted * Coalition - 41 seats (-17) * Greens - 1 seat (-3) * Independents/minor parties - 11 seats (-1) * Undecided - 4 seats * In the Senate, Labor could gain up to five spots from the coalition, with about 76.1 per cent of the upper house ballots counted as of Monday morning WHERE THE COUNT IS UP TO * Labor has 54.67 per cent of the two-party national count with 6,217,274 votes, an increase of 2.54 per cent, the Australian Electoral Commission says * The Liberals have 45.33 per cent of the national vote with 5,155,522 ballots SEATS STILL IN DOUBT * Calwell (Vic) - Labor candidate Basem Abdo leads the outer Melbourne electorate with just over 30 per cent of first preference votes, but two independents with about 12 per cent each make this seat highly complicated. There is a possibility Carly Moore or Joseph Youhana could snowball up preferences and overtake Mr Abdo in the final tally * Longman (QLD) - Labor's Rhiannyn Douglas leads LNP MP Terry Young by 219 votes with almost 85 per cent of the ballots counted * Monash (Vic) - Liberal candidate Mary Aldred appears to have the edge in the regional Victorian seat with 32.1 per cent of the primary vote, but the presence of two strong independents - Deb Leonard and Russell Broadbent - complicate the preference distribution * Flinders (Vic) - Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie has secured a commanding 41.4 per cent of the primary vote but her lead could be at risk if independent Ben Smith finishes in second ahead of Labor's Sarah Race and soaks up Labor and Greens preferences
ABC News
09-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Labor's landslide victory obscures a disturbing trend for the major parties
Labor took the glory in last weekend's election, but beneath the surface an ongoing trend in how Australia votes has quietly carried on. The major parties' primary vote has, once again, fallen. In fact, there is a strong chance that the combined independent and minor party vote will beat one of the major parties for the first time in seven decades. On a simple two-sided political axis, most seats swung left towards Labor last Saturday. But if we look at the result in three dimensions instead, we see yet another shift away from the two big parties. This triangle can help us see it in action. It's a charming little equilateral beauty, isn't it? The result for Grayndler in 2025. There's a Labor corner, a Coalition corner, and a corner for everyone else, and we can plot seats on the triangle according to the primary vote for each of those groups. For example, if a seat has a high Labor primary vote, like the prime minister's seat of Grayndler, it'll be well into the red corner. (If you're confused, you can read a longer walkthrough of how the chart works.) Here's where the total national vote sits on the chart for 2025 — you can see it's within the Labor triangle because they won the largest share of the first preference vote. And it's coloured red because Labor won the election. The national result for 2025 was very close to the middle of the triangle. What's a little harder to see immediately is that the dot is also closer to the grey "other" corner than it is to the blue Coalition corner. That's because this election, for the first time since the creation of the Liberal Party in 1944, the combined independent and minor party vote looks likely to beat a major party. On the latest count, the Coalition got 32.2 per cent of the primary vote. Minor parties and independents received 33.1 per cent. What this means, unless the Coalition manages to bridge the gap in final counting, is that more people marked their ballot with a 1 next to an independent or minor party than did so for a Liberal or Nationals candidate. The "other" vote is a couple of percentage points higher than it was last time, in 2022… … more than double what it was in the 2007 election … … and nearly eight times what it was 50 years ago, in 1975. Over time, the national result has drifted upwards towards the other parties. Let's expand out 1975's national vote to see the result in every single seat. Back then, nearly everyone voted for a major party, so all the seats were bunched along the triangle's lower edge. All electorates were clustered at the bottom in 1975. It was only much more recently you'd see seats starting to reliably appear in the grey zone at the top of the triangle, where "other" votes dominate. We're about to show you the results in every seat in this election, but to set the scene, here's a reminder of the 2022 results. The distribution in 2022 is much closer to the centre of the triangle. Three years ago, there were 24 seats in the top section of the triangle. That's 24 seats in which the primary vote for minor parties and independents beat both Labor and the Coalition. Now we'll show you the results from last weekend. The seats have drifted away from the Coalition – in both directions – since 2022. Even more seats have shifted upward. On the latest count, there are 32 seats in the top section of the triangle, eight more than last election. (The triangle icons represent seats where the winner is still in doubt) Those 32 include three long-term members of parliament who now hold very safe seats: Andrew Wilkie in Clark, Bob Katter in Kennedy and Helen Haines in Indi. When Wilkie first won his seat in 2010, it was a surprise to everyone — he won from third place after getting a very favourable flow of preferences. Now, he holds one of the safest seats in the country. On the triangle we can also see how individual seats like Wilkie's have moved over time. Here's where it was on the triangle in 2007, when it was held by Labor. (Back then it was called Denison.) Clark was called Denison in 2007. Wilkie won it in 2010 for the first time. And here's how, over six elections, Wilkie has turned what was once a safe Labor seat into the safest independent seat in the country. The seat continued its upward trajectory. This election, we've seen more seats shoot upwards. Labor's managed to hold off a strong challenge in WA's Fremantle, where the independent vote surged. Here, fewer people put a "1" next to Labor than put a "1" next to independents and minor parties, although the government has managed to keep the seat on preferences. In the ACT, the seat of Bean looks set to go down to the wire, and Labor could lose it to independent Jessie Price. These seats now sit much closer to the centre of the triangle. And Labor has had other scares too. Take a look at how Blaxland and Watson, in Sydney's south and south-west, have moved. These Sydney seats have also shifted upwards. They were, and still are, safe Labor seats. But in both of them, independents campaigning against the government's response to the war in Gaza have eaten into Labor's primary vote. Another seat that's shifted in a big way is Calwell. But that large "other" vote is spread across a lot of candidates and it's very unclear who will win. Labor is facing more serious challenges from independents and minor parties than it did three years ago. But compared to the Coalition side, the red side of the triangle is still looking a bit sturdier. On top of the seats it lost three years ago, the conservatives have had to fight back a slew of new challengers. It has mostly been successful this time. But going into the future, it has a fair few seats that look vulnerable. Labor and Coalition MPs with seats in the grey triangle are looking vulnerable. On the latest count, there are nine blue seats and eight red seats inside this grey area, where the Coalition and Labor have been beaten on primaries by the "other" vote but managed to win on preferences. This segment of the triangle shows us which MPs might well be looking over the shoulder in the future. The Coalition members for Wannon and Cowper have successfully fended off challenges from independents in this election. But their seats have both moved up the triangle. The primary vote in McPherson is no longer favouring the Coalition. Take a look at how the seat of McPherson on the Gold Coast has been drifting upward since 2007. This election the sitting LNP member Karen Andrews retired, and a new independent Erchana Murray-Bartlett gained 14 per cent of the vote. Not enough to win, but enough to push the seat into the grey region. In other seats there is a strong "other" vote, but there's not a lot of agreement on who the preferred "other" candidate is. Take Michael McCormack's seat of Riverina for example, where about 41 per cent of the vote has been split between 11 independents and minor party candidates, ranging the full breadth of the political spectrum. There is a glimmer of hope for the major parties though. It is possible for them to win seats back from the independents and minor parties. Because while the national vote for independents and minor parties has gone up, the crossbench hasn't really grown. In fact, once all the results are known, it will probably have shrunk compared to last election's result. Goldstein has returned to Liberal hands after three years. Independent Zoe Daniel in Goldstein has been defeated, returning one teal seat to Liberal hands. The Liberals are also locked in a very tight battle with another teal, Monique Ryan in Kooyong. The Greens leader Adam Bandt lost his seat, despite leading on primary votes. A swing against him and toward Labor, coupled with an electoral redistribution that saw Labor-leaning areas moved into the seat, saw him defeated after five terms in parliament. Here's the constellation that Melbourne has created as it has travelled across our triangle universe since 2007. Adam Bandt won the primary vote but lost Melbourne. With its latest little move back towards Labor's corner, it looks rather like the Big Dipper, right? The bad news didn't end there for The Greens: they've lost at least two of their Brisbane seats as well, with their third still in doubt. Here's how they've shifted on the triangle. The Greens lost their three Brisbane seats in 2025. As these results show, the rising vote for others doesn't mean hung parliaments are a certainty going forward. Landslide victories are absolutely still possible. And when they get them, it's easier for major parties to ignore their slowly declining primary votes. But this upward movement on the triangle hasn't stopped. That means in the future, if election results are closer than this one, the chances of a hung parliament will remain strong. It's something the major parties ignore at their peril. Credits
