The Australian state with a burgeoning leftist constituency
Going through the recent vote in Victoria, Australia, one would not be blamed for overlooking the Victorian Socialists, a leftist party founded in 2018 that scored only 1.4% in what was their second state election run. Dig deeper into the results, however, and there are real indications the party could be a force in years to come.
The 1.4% is deceptive. The Victorian Socialists didn’t field candidates in every electorate, but where they did, they seem to have increased their totals across the board. Some constituencies, like Footscray or Brunswick, saw the party field candidates for the first time, and end up with some of their best results yet.
It’s not hard to understand why the party made inroads. In Footscray, where the Victorian Socialists received their highest first-preference vote share with 9.3%, candidate Jorge Jorquera was able to leverage his position as a councillor for the city of Maribyrnong into significant support. Jorquera is Chilean-Australian, the very first local elected official for the Victorian Socialists, and dresses like one of your cooler uncles.
Elsewhere, the party fielded young candidates, a common phenomenon in similar socialist outfits around the world. Three of the party’s next top vote-getters, all with 7% or more, were born in 1990 or earlier. The wide range of ages, backgrounds, and even personal styles that characterize the Victorian Socialist candidates lends to their dynamic appeal.
That energy has translated into action. As party member Danny Wardle tells me: “The Victorian Socialists… have run their biggest campaign this year. They're a micro party but [had] an impressive ground campaign, with lots of door-knocking and yard signs, in the north and west Melbourne metropolitan areas.”
How much does all of this matter? Growth isn’t guaranteed from election to election, even with the significant expansion of support observed in some electorates. But the party’s strategy of targeting specific seats rather than going all-out statewide could at some point lead to a breakthrough. In a few constituencies, it isn’t impossible to imagine the Socialists eventually making a leap into at least top-two contention.
(Two weeks after the vote, results are mostly but not yet complete, so totals mentioned here may still go down slightly.)
There is a second-order impact. This election, Victoria’s Greens were able to make it to the instant run-off in a slew of seats where they weren’t featured previously. In some of those, they got quite close. One could make the argument that turnout for the Socialists made at least a handful of those races narrower.
It can be easy to ignore the smaller parties. For a few of them, though, there are visible pathways toward bigger things.
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