One Nation candidates will not be toppled with “gotcha moments”, a leading pollster says, as the populist party emerges an early sprinter in the race for Farrer.
David Farley, an ex-agribusiness boss, is One Nation’s candidate for the May 9 by-election and last month sparked controversy for sharing raunchy content from OnlyFans creators on social media.
He has said the content was shared inadvertently and that he had “no idea what OnlyFans is”.
But the incident cost him preferences from conservative Christian minor party Family First, which said the “sharing of sexually suggestive content involving young women raised serious questions about his judgment and respect for women”.
He also drew fire from senior Nationals MP Michael McCormack this week for posting a video with the tag “Hectic Griffith crime backstory” while campaigning in the regional city.
Mr McCormack, who has held the neighbouring seat of Riverina for 16 years, said Mr Farley “absolutely smeared” the people of Griffith and that they would be better represented by the poorly polling Nationals’ candidate, Brad Thompson.
But Redbridge strategy and analytics chief Kos Samaras told NewsWire that Mr Farley’s social media woes would not seriously threaten his chances.
“At the end of the day, One Nation selects candidates based on who the new constituency is willing to vote for and I don’t think gotcha moments and issues that may have occurred in the past, in terms of what they may have said, really bites all that hard within the One Nation base,” Mr Samaras said.
Pointing to Mr McCormack’s criticism, he brushed it off as a doomed strategy.
“These are the tools that have been wheeled out by established political players for over two decades now, and they will be seen by the One Nation constituency as exactly that,” Mr Samaras said.
“There was an there was an attempt to do that in South Australia as well and it didn’t work.”
One Nation was on track to win a fourth seat in South Australia’s lower house on Thursday as vote counting from last month’s state election grinded on.
The outcome largely tallies with polls showing a surge in One Nation’s primary support heading into the vote.
One of the candidates, Aoi Baxter, was dumped on election eve after it was reported UK police had issued a warrant for his arrest.
According to the ABC, he failed to front court after being charged with sexually touching a woman without consent.
While One Nation’s opponents in South Australia seized on it, the party still returned a historic result by earning their first lower house seats at the ballot box.
Mr Samaras said any scandals in Farrer, unless terminal, would also wash off.
He said that there were many reasons for that but that it stemmed from broad feelings of disenfranchisement.
“It’s driven by a deep sense of economic abandonment and a sense the two party system has failed the country” he said.
“It’s definitely not superficial. We saw that in South Australia.”
Mr Samaras would not make a call on whether Farrer back Mr Farley or independent Michelle Milthorpe but said it was clear the electorate was seeking change after 25 years of being represented by Sussan Ley.
The former Liberal leader quit parliament after getting rolled by Angus Taylor earlier this year.
Farrer is widely seen as a test to see if One Nation can turn its poll power into ballots in a federal contest.
Nationals defector Barnaby Joyce is the party’s sole MP in the House of Representatives.
