# 2026 South Australian state election

The 2026 South Australian state election will be held on 21 March 2026 to elect members to the 56th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly (the lower house, whose members were elected at the 2022 election), and half the seats in the Legislative Council (the upper house, last filled at the 2018 election) are up for re-election.
The incumbent Labor government, currently led by Premier Peter Malinauskas, will attempt to win a second four-year term against the Liberal opposition.
South Australia has compulsory voting, uses full-preference instant-runoff voting for single-member electorates in the lower house, and optional preference single transferable voting in the proportionally represented upper house. The election will be conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA), an independent body answerable to Parliament.
The election will be held on the same day as the South Australian First Nations Voice election.

## Background

At the 2022 election, South Australian Labor Party won government after spending four years in Opposition. The party, led by Peter Malinauskas, gained 8 seats to have a majority in the House of Assembly while the incumbent South Australian Liberal Party government, led by Premier Steven Marshall, saw a loss of nine seats including 3 from independents. Statewide, the Labor Party won 54.59% of the two-party preferred vote, which was a swing of over 6.5% compared to the previous election.
In the Legislative Council, Labor won five seats, the Liberals won four and the Greens and One Nation both won one seat each. In total, the Labor government has nine seats and the Liberal opposition has eight seats, with five crossbenchers (the Greens and SA-Best have two seats each, while One Nation has one, held by Sarah Game).
With the Liberal Upper House President unexpectedly re-elected to the Presidency, this gives the Labor government nine of 21 seats during votes on the floor, meaning that only an additional two non-government votes are required for the government to pass legislation.
The 2022 Bragg state by-election and the 2024 Dunstan state by-election saw strengthened Labor votes.
Labor MP Leon Bignell has temporarily become an independent from April 2024 to sit as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly.
The 2024 Black state by-election was held on 16 November, with Labor’s Alex Dighton comfortably winning the seat and it was second time Labor had gained a seat from the Liberals in a by-election after the Dunstan by-election. Resulting in the number of Liberal lower house seats being reduced to their worst parliamentary position in nearly a century.
Liberal MLC Jing Lee became an independent and moved to the crossbench in January 2025.

## Pendulum

The pendulum includes mid-term affiliation changes and by-election outcomes, in particular the Dunstan by-election and Black by-election which saw Labor take both seats away from the Liberals.
| Government seats (28) Marginal Dunstan Cressida O'Hanlon ALP 0.8 Gibson Sarah Andrews ALP 2.5 King Rhiannon Pearce ALP 2.9 Davenport Erin Thompson ALP 3.4 Waite Catherine Hutchesson ALP 4.0 Newland Olivia Savvas ALP 5.4 Elder Nadia Clancy ALP 5.6 Fairly safe Adelaide Lucy Hood ALP 6.2 Black Alex Dighton ALP 9.9 Safe Torrens Dana Wortley ALP 10.0 Lee Stephen Mullighan ALP 11.2 Wright Blair Boyer ALP 11.9 Florey Michael Brown ALP 12.8 Enfield Andrea Michaels ALP 14.5 Badcoe Jayne Stinson ALP 14.8 Hurtle Vale Nat Cook ALP 15.5 Playford John Fulbrook ALP 16.3 Reynell Katrine Hildyard ALP 16.7 West Torrens Tom Koutsantonis ALP 18.8 Cheltenham Joe Szakacs ALP 19.1 Light Tony Piccolo ALP 19.5 Taylor Nick Champion ALP 19.7 Ramsay Zoe Bettison ALP 19.9 Very safe Kaurna Chris Picton ALP 20.1 Elizabeth Lee Odenwalder ALP 20.5 Giles Eddie Hughes ALP 21.0 Port Adelaide Susan Close ALP 21.8 Croydon Peter Malinauskas ALP 24.8 | Opposition seats (13) Marginal Finniss David Basham LIB 0.7 v IND Morialta John Gardner LIB 1.4 Heysen Josh Teague LIB 1.9 Unley David Pisoni LIB 2.2 Flinders Sam Telfer LIB 3.0 v IND Hartley Vincent Tarzia LIB 3.6 Morphett Stephen Patterson LIB 4.5 Colton Matt Cowdrey LIB 4.8 Hammond Adrian Pederick LIB 5.1 Bragg Jack Batty LIB 5.6 Fairly safe Frome Penny Pratt LIB 8.1 Safe Schubert Ashton Hurn LIB 11.9 Chaffey Tim Whetstone LIB 17.2 Crossbench seats (6) Narungga Fraser Ellis IND 8.3 v LIB Mt Gambier Troy Bell IND 13.1 v LIB Mawson Leon Bignell IND ALP 13.8 Stuart Geoff Brock IND 17.1 v LIB MacKillop Nick McBride IND LIB 22.6 Kavel Dan Cregan IND 25.4 v LIB |

## Redistributed notional pendulum

A redistribution, required after each election, was finalised by the South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission in December 2024. The below post-redistribution pendulum shows all seats by their redistributed Labor or Liberal notional two-party-preferred margin.
| Labor seats (27) by notional 2PP Marginal Gibson Sarah Andrews ALP 2.3 Waite Catherine Hutchesson ALP 3.4 Davenport Erin Thompson ALP 4.0 Newland Olivia Savvas ALP 5.1 Elder Nadia Clancy ALP 5.7 King Rhiannon Pearce ALP 5.7 Fairly safe Adelaide Lucy Hood ALP 7.1 Torrens Dana Wortley ALP 9.1 Safe Lee Stephen Mullighan ALP 11.2 Wright Blair Boyer ALP 11.5 Mawson Leon Bignell IND 14.2 Badcoe Jayne Stinson ALP 14.3 Enfield Andrea Michaels ALP 14.5 Florey Michael Brown ALP 14.9 Hurtle Vale Nat Cook ALP 15.9 Reynell Katrine Hildyard ALP 17.0 Giles Eddie Hughes ALP 17.4 West Torrens Tom Koutsantonis ALP 18.2 Playford John Fulbrook ALP 19.0 Ramsay Zoe Bettison ALP 19.2 Cheltenham Joe Szakacs ALP 19.3 Light Tony Piccolo ALP 19.5 Very safe Kaurna Chris Picton ALP 20.0 Taylor Nick Champion ALP 20.6 Elizabeth Lee Odenwalder ALP 20.7 Port Adelaide Susan Close ALP 21.6 Croydon Peter Malinauskas ALP 23.7 | Liberal seats (20) by notional 2PP Marginal Stuart Geoff Brock IND 0.6 Dunstan Cressida O'Hanlon ALP 1.0 Morialta John Gardner LIB 2.1 Heysen Josh Teague LIB 2.3 Black Alex Dighton ALP 2.6 Unley David Pisoni LIB 2.6 Ngadjuri Penny Pratt LIB 3.3 Kavel Dan Cregan IND 3.7 Hartley Vincent Tarzia LIB 3.8 Morphett Stephen Patterson LIB 4.6 Colton Matt Cowdrey LIB 5.0 Hammond Adrian Pederick LIB 5.2 Fairly safe Finniss David Basham LIB 6.9 Bragg Jack Batty LIB 7.2 Safe Schubert Ashton Hurn LIB 11.8 Narungga Fraser Ellis IND 13.7 Mt Gambier Troy Bell IND 13.9 Chaffey Tim Whetstone LIB 17.3 Very safe Flinders Sam Telfer LIB 20.1 MacKillop Nick McBride IND 22.7 |

## Date

The last state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members for the House of Assembly and half of the members in the Legislative Council. In South Australia, section 28 of the Constitution Act 1934, as amended in 2001, directs that parliaments have fixed four-year terms, and elections must be held on the third Saturday in March every four years unless this date falls the day after Good Friday, occurs within the same month as a federal election, or the conduct of the election could be adversely affected by a state disaster. Section 28 also states that the Governor may also dissolve the Assembly and call an election for an earlier date if the government has lost the confidence of the Assembly or a bill of special importance has been rejected by the Legislative Council. Section 41 states that both the Council and the Assembly may also be dissolved simultaneously if a deadlock occurs between them.
The Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2013 introduced set dates for writs for general elections in South Australia. The writ sets the dates for the close of the electoral roll and the close of nominations for an election. The Electoral Act 1985 requires that, for a general election, the writ be issued 28 days before the date fixed for polling (S47(2a)) and the electoral roll be closed at 12 noon, six days after the issue of the writ (S48(3(a)(i))). The close of nominations will be at 12 noon three days after the close of rolls (Electoral Act 1985 S48(4)(a) and S4(1)).

## Opinion polling
### Voting intention
#### House of Assembly

Primary vote :
Two-party preferred :

#### Legislative Council

Primary vote :

### Leadership approval

| Date | Firm | Preferred Premier | Preferred Premier | Preferred Premier | Malinauskas | Malinauskas | Malinauskas | Speirs/Tarzia | Speirs/Tarzia | Speirs/Tarzia |
| Date | Firm | Malinauskas | Tarzia | Undecided | Satisfied | Dissatisfied | Undecided | Satisfied | Dissatisfied | Undecided |
| 18–23 February 2025 | DemosAU | 51% | 23% | 26% | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 12 August 2024: Vincent Tarzia becomes Liberal leader |||||||||||
| | | Malinauskas | Speirs | Undecided | Satisfied | Dissatisfied | Undecided | Satisfied | Dissatisfied | Undecided |
| March 2023 | Dynata | — | — | — | 74% | 13% | 13% | 51% | 19% | 30% |

## Retiring MPs
### Liberal

* David Pisoni MHA (Unley) – announced 8 October 2024

### Greens

* Tammy Franks MLC – announced 30 September 2024

### Independent

* Dan Cregan MHA (Kavel) – announced 28 January 2025