As of reporting, the Albanese government was on track to return with at least 86 lower house seats after a historic election night saw a 3.2 per cent nationwide swing toward Labor.

Saturday’s results were a marked turnaround in Anthony Albanese’s fortunes compared to six weeks ago, when polls and analysts were almost unanimously predicting a hung parliament.

But research firm YouGov — which correctly called the 2023 Spanish election, 2024 UK election and the 2025 German election — predicted Labor would win up to 85 seats in its final modelling.

The company spoke to 35,000-40,000 voters in electorates across the country, harvesting both quantitative and qualitative data while looking to the past for insights.

“We have to run like 25,000 simulations to actually produce all the variations,” Paul Smith, YouGov’s director of public data, told NewsWire.

“It produces a range of results and it predicts the likelihood.”

Mr Smith said that the model showed the Coalition winning “suburban working class seats and provincial working class seats” in February, including Labor heartland electorates in Western Sydney and Melbourne.

“It put the Coalition position within striking distance of government,” he said.

But as the campaign got underway, the opposition’s chances of forming government shrunk.

According to the data, the reason was clear.

“The driver of the Coalition vote loss is tied to Peter Dutton’s personal perception,” he said.

The Opposition Leader lost his seat to Labor’s Ali France, bringing an end to his 24 years in parliament.

“In the last week of February, we had Anthony Albanese leading Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister 42-40,” Mr Smith said.

“That’s nothing — that’s effectively a tie, and Peter Dutton led out of metropolitan Sydney, in rural and provincial seats, and amongst men.

“He doesn’t lead in any of those groups. Now, Anthony Albanese leads 50-35.”

According to YouGov polling, Mr Dutton also had a net positive perception rating of -2.

The pre-vote polling put it at -18.

Mr Smith said key policies, such as the scrapped work-from-home proposal, severely eroded Mr Dutton’s likability.

“Work from home caught people’s attention because it’s not some sort of silly political debate, which is how most people see politics and politicians,” he said, referring to feedback from the tens of thousands of voters.

“This strikes the heart of families, and family arrangements.

“This was the number one cut through issue, and it made the public form an extraordinarily negative opinion about the Coalition.”

The Coalition abandoned the controversial policy mid way through the campaign.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has since admitted he was not consulted before the proposal was officially announced as part of the opposition’s election platform.

Mr Smith said “Trump style politics” was another reason, but stressed that for voters, “it’s about risk”.

“He just looked too much of a risk and like he was not ready, and not organised,” he said.

“People had a vague idea about who he was and thought he was … a sort of strongman figure.

“Now they have this other view that he’s a risk to their families and then going to be an extra stress on their lives.”

With Mr Dutton and several other senior Liberal MPs unseated, the future of the Coalition’s leadership has been thrust into uncertainty.

Whoever replaced Mr Dutton will have a mammoth task ahead of them, with diverging views on the direction of the party.

Asked what the Coalition’s future looked like, Mr Smith said setting policies that matched with its target voters was a start.

“They went into the election with a strategy of being on the side of working class voters,” he said.

“But their policies were the direct opposite of what they wanted.

“They need to match what they’re selling to the market and they showed no understanding.”