March 2026 - South Australian Election Poll
Fox & Hedgehog has published its final pre-election poll ahead of the South Australian state election, to be held this Saturday, 21 March 2026.
Despite a two-point drop in Labor’s primary vote since our February survey, the Malinauskas Government retains a strong election-winning lead as voters head to the polls. Our survey finds Labor leading the Liberals 60–40 on a two-party preferred basis, and leading One Nation 59–41. Compared to the 2022 election result, this represents a 5.4% swing to Labor.
Primary Vote
Our final survey records the following primary votes:
Labor: 38%
One Nation: 21%
Liberal: 18%
Greens: 11%
Other: 12%
The increase in the ‘Other’ vote is largely concentrated in regional areas, suggesting a late swing towards independent candidates.
Three-Party Preferred
On a three-party preferred basis, the results are:
Labor: 52%
One Nation: 26%
Liberal: 22%
These results suggest that One Nation may be the primary challenger to Labor in more seats than the Liberal Party. If this pattern is reflected across electorates on election day, the traditional two-party electoral pendulum will likely have limited predictive value.
As a statewide poll, these results represent an aggregate picture of voter sentiment across South Australia. Local factors, including popular incumbents, retiring MPs, and local issues, can produce outcomes in individual electorates that differ substantially from statewide swing estimates.
Leadership Ratings
Peter Malinauskas maintains a commanding lead as preferred Premier, ahead of Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn 55% to 22%.
Malinauskas continues to record strong personal ratings, with a net approval of +33%, while Hurn’s approval has improved since our previous survey to +10%.
Vote Timing
The survey also asked respondents about their intended voting method. The survey found:
48% plan to vote on election day
43% plan to vote early
8% report they have already voted
When broken down by vote timing, Liberal support appears stronger among early and postal voters than among those planning to vote on election day. While Liberal support among early voters is in the low-20s, the party records 14% among those intending to vote on Saturday.
Because election day booths are typically the first results reported on election night, early counting may initially appear even more favourable to Labor than the final statewide result.
Sample and Margin of Error
This survey was conducted between 6 and 16 March 2026, with 1,008 respondents across South Australia. The poll has a margin of error of ±3.9 percentage points.
Note on Methodology
The 2026 South Australian election represents the first contest in which One Nation has re-emerged as a major statewide political force, creating a more complex political environment than traditional two-party contests.
Fox & Hedgehog uses past vote as a key weighting variable to ensure samples reflect the composition of the electorate. During this campaign we observed unusually high levels of past vote recall for One Nation, with some respondents reporting having previously voted for the party at levels significantly higher than its historical vote share.
This pattern is consistent with a well-documented polling phenomenon in which voters retrospectively align their reported past vote with their current political preference. In effect, voters who now intend to support the rising party increasingly report that they supported it previously. This can be thought of as a form of “reverse shy-Toryism”, where support for a growing party becomes retrospectively normalised.
In standard weighting frameworks this dynamic can place downward pressure on estimates of current support for rapidly growing parties.
Fox & Hedgehog has adjusted for this dynamic in producing the estimates presented in this release. As with all elections involving structural shifts in party competition, the final vote will provide an opportunity to further evaluate these dynamics.
Link to full report: https://tinyurl.com/March26-SAElection-FoxHedgehog