SA state election 2026: Labor confident, but first results show big swings to One Nation in regional South Australia | South Australian election 2026
Peter Malinauskas appears headed for a landslide re-election victory in the South Australian state election when polls close at 6pm local time (6.30pm AEDT) on Saturday.
But early results showed One Nation’s recent poll surge was replicated in the results. The race is a major test for the party led by Pauline Hanson; The Liberal opposition’s seat count in the lower house is likely to fall from 13 to single digits.
Early results showed big swings towards One Nation in several regional seats, including Narungga in the Yorke Peninsula, Chaffey in the Riverland and Hammond in Murray Bridge.
“I think having a strong voice and a real opposition in the state will be a new beginning for South Australia,” Hanson said when he arrived at the party’s election night event.
“I think that’s what people want. People tell us ‘you’re our last hope’.”
Luke Mansillo, a political scientist at the University of Sydney, said the initial results could point to a big change.
“One Nation appears to be performing as well, if not better, than the Queensland election in 1998,” he said.
One Nation won 11 seats in this state poll.
“This is undoubtedly a potential realignment of Australian politics. We don’t know the longevity of this.”
One Nation blocked the ABC’s event at Adelaide after the public broadcaster reported the Adelaide candidate was the subject of a UK arrest warrant. The party refused after it was revealed that Aoi Baxter had failed to attend court after being charged with an alleged sexual offence.
Federal Liberal MP Tony Pasin, who appeared on a Sky News election night panel, admitted shortly after the polls closed that having six to eight seats would have been an acceptable result for the Liberals in the circumstances.
Labor entered the campaign as the clear favorite for re-election due to the personal popularity of its leader and the chaos and scandal that had plagued the Liberals for much of the term. In Saturday’s elections, the party held 29 of the 47 state seats, five of which are held by independents.
More than 35% of the state voted before election day; this is a record result and higher than the nearly 17% in the 2022 survey.
The Liberals turned to first-term MP Ashton Hurn late last year after internal polls suggested the party was heading towards an election sweep, with the 35-year-old becoming the party’s fourth leader in four years.
An election victory would give Malinauskas the mandate to deliver a second-term agenda focused on building more homes, making public education free and keeping kids away from screens.
The Prime Minister faced scrutiny during the campaign over his response to the algae bloom crisis. He acknowledged that the government had failed to fix ambulance ramps in hospitals; this was his signature promise in the 2022 elections.
The state poll has been billed as the first real test of One Nation’s growing support in national polls since the 2025 federal election.
The party’s federal leader, Pauline Hanson, spent much of last week campaigning in regional SA with former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who was announced as One Nation’s state leader in February.
Despite the Liberals instructing their supporters to put One Nation ahead of Labor, Hanson’s party did not return the favour, opting instead to give open tickets to how-to-vote cards in the province. This move could complicate results in some closely spaced seats and slow final results.
The election was also the first held under the state’s new election laws that ban donations to political parties.
Federal Labor will be watching the results closely, but the federal Coalition, which includes opposition leader Angus Taylor and new National leader Matt Canavan, will focus even more intensely on Hanson’s results.
Counting will continue until 01:00 on Sunday morning.
