If anyone is as happy as Anthony Albanese now, it is Jacinta Allan.
As the results of the federal election swept Saturday night, one of Victoria's biggest surprises was that Labor's breach of months of grim predictions and was unable to strengthen its control over the state.
Despite the unpopularity of Allen and the drag she exerted in the labor vote – not only from liberals, but her own federal colleague – the state is harder than in 2022.
Labour's two-party priority vote in the state hits 54.8 to 45.2, according to the polls.
Labour not only owns Aston - a seat in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, which won the 2023 by-election, but also announced the campaign a few weeks ago, withdrawing resources a few weeks ago - but also won victories from nearby Deakin and Menzies.
Labour's target list is not. In Menzies, there are not even live organizers.
Other suburban seats targeted by liberals such as Chisholm, Dunkley and McEwen also turned further to labor, and the strongholds that talked about Bruce, Hawke and Gorton were proved to be garbage.
For a state they desperately need to turn around, the alliance is a devastating result. At best, the Liberals can have only seven out of Victoria's 38 - as many as the National Partners.
Liberals don't see this - neither does labor.
"We expect the Luftwaffe to come in and completely put us in trouble - instead, we put Dutton in a lame pony," said a Victorian worker. "Their campaign is an absolute joke."
State labor figures have already gotten rid of the party swing and are expected to drop 1.5% to 2.5%, while state caucus members question whether Allen's leaders can lose more than three federal seats. If the main seats drop, the challenge is considered inevitable.
That's the inner worry, Albanese only appeared with Allen once during the campaign. In the last two weeks, she held only two metropolis press conferences, away from the campaign — a photo with Darth Vader at the LEGO Star Wars show, which caught some eyebrows.
But Allen was unscathed.
Her socialist left-wing Victorian labor MP said the result should be "let any leader speculate".
"The hysteria surrounding Jacinta's leadership is ridiculous," another Labor MP said. "It is unfair to link her to the results of the federal poll, but if it's a barometer of success, then this result should shut down her critics."
But others have expressed caution, pointing out that Victorians are able to distinguish state and federal governments.
A MP said the federal Labor commitment to suburban roads and Melbourne airports would have resonated with voters. Another said the election won the federal issue - tax cuts, Medicare and a response to the second President Trump.
But Allen doesn't have it. On Sunday, she attributed the results to “Victorian initiatives” such as investments in women’s health and freedom TAFE, which are now adopted by the federal government.
"It's very clear that federal and state labor tools share the same values," she told reporters.
For Allen and many of her MPs, the result is also a defense of the suburban rail cycle – the state government’s flagship flagship 90km, linking Cheltenham to Werriby.
“Now four elections – the Victorian community has supported it time and time again,” Allen said.
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Others in the labor force believe that the result is strong support from Chinese Australian voters in the eastern suburbs - many of whom believe Peter Dutton is Chinese hostile.
"It has nothing to do with SRL, but the Prime Minister said it is politically very beneficial," a federal labor source said.
Meanwhile, Allen's critics point out that Bendigo is the prime minister's homeland and that Labor MP Lisa Chesters has a swing of about 10% because the evidence isn't all good.
But those close to the Prime Minister argue that if she can drive a tough state budget later this month, she will host the long-awaited vacancy of two major infrastructure projects – the Metro Tunnel and the West Gate Tunnel – brings her real opportunity to build lasting momentum.
The real crisis now lies in the Liberal Party.
At the Congress of Liberals in Victoria, the same issues that plague previous elections continued to surface: poor candidate selection, lack of policy depth, little participation in women, and obsession with cultural wars and marginal issues.
"Victoria is not a conservative country," said one liberal. "When will they take it into their minds?"
Another said the Liberals didn’t attract young voters: “My daughter said she woke up Sunday and promised to reduce HEC debt by 20%. That tells you everything.”
The liberal strategist blamed pollster Tony Barry at the feet of the Victorian division, calling it a "broken institution" that ruined his own campaign.
The party’s internal turmoil dates back to 2023, when leader John Pesutto led the push to expel Moira from the party room - a move that sparked a libel lawsuit that later won a libel lawsuit that left him losing leadership.
The party’s new leader, Brad Battin, may have tried to distance himself from Dutton during the campaign, but he reignited the party’s internal war days before he was promoted to “representative of the western suburbs.”
Unlike the federal counterparts, the Victorian Liberal Party House retained a few moderates. But they fear whether Pasutto went bankrupt due to legal costs in the libel case, and the party could be forced to go to Hawthorn's by-election - he only nearly won a seat in 2022 after campaigning for plans to restore small-scale liberal values.
Battin has just been working for just a few months and there are few signs that unify a broken base, reconnect with voters in the city center or win women. He has not yet been able to go to the media to explain the federal results on Sunday - a silence that frustrated his MPs.
His team insists that this week's new policy will be ahead of the November 2026 state election. But that's not the only lesson that state liberals have learned from federal polls.