This poll says no one can win the next state election. Someone has to

The kindest thing that can be said about the electoral prospects of Labor and the Liberals in Victoria is that, come November this year, one of these turkeys has to win.

It is just difficult to see, on the results of the latest Resolve survey conducted over the past two months, how either of them can.

Political orthodoxy, electoral history and common sense says the Australian Labor Party cannot secure a lower house majority with just 28 per cent of the primary vote. Throughout the long and storied history of the party, including its most difficult periods, it has never recorded such a paltry vote at a Victorian election.

On the rare occasions where Labor’s stocks have fallen so low elsewhere – think Anna Bligh’s thumping loss to Campbell Newman in Queensland or Kristina Keneally’s ritual humiliation in NSW – the results have been disastrous.

Equally, the Coalition cannot win with a combined vote of just 30 per cent. Even when the Liberal and National parties slumped to their modern nadir in 2002 under His Oiliness Robert Doyle, they still scrounged together a primary vote of nearly 34 per cent.

Does anyone seriously think the Coalition vote can go backwards from the shellacking it copped in 2022 and still pick up an additional 16 seats?

The history of opinion polls, including those conducted by Resolve, also tells us that, as we move closer to an election, some voters will stop playing footsie with their new political interests and return to the domestic stability of our two-party system. That may happen in Victoria.

But for a moment, let’s assume that the results of this Resolve poll will be reflected in how people actually vote when it matters on November 28. How do we make sense of these seemingly contradictory numbers?

The most obvious point is that the emergence in Victoria of One Nation, as incongruous as it is for a party with as much connection to this state as the Brisbane Broncos, is shaping as a Coalition killer.

As psephologist Antony Green and Australia’s pre-eminent political commentator Paul Kelly have both noted, whenever One Nation secures a significant chunk of the vote, it takes from the Liberals or Nationals on primary and gives to Labor on preferences. There is no reason to think Victoria will break this pattern.

One Nation is unlikely to win any lower house seats with 11 per cent of the statewide vote, but they can condemn the Coalition parties to opposition for a fourth consecutive term – the political equivalent of life without parole. If that happens, Jacinta Allan will be forever grateful to Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce and the miracle of preferential voting.

A second observation is that, while Jess Wilson’s elevation to opposition leader three months ago has encouraged people to take another look at the Victorian Liberal Party, it is not at all certain that, upon closer examination, they will like what they find.

The party, administratively, remains a basket case. The last time we checked, its membership was neatly divided between plaintiffs and respondents in a Supreme Court dispute. Its policy offerings, particularly on the thorny question of how to reduce debt while reducing taxes and not cutting services, are undercooked. Its brand has taken a hammering from the Coalition’s national identity crisis.

A third observation is why, if Allan really is as unpopular as this poll suggests, the party is so determined to stick with her. Normally, the Labor machine would rather eat its young than lose an election.

Suffice to say, these aren’t normal times.

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