BEN HARVEY: Every politician will watch WA State election on Saturday to see if Australia swings right

Every politician in Australia will be eyeing the WA election on Saturday, and not because they’re interested in who wins.

Short of a last-minute revelation that the WA Labor Party is riddled with secret nazi paedophiles who support Collingwood, this poll will be go handsomely to incumbent Premier Roger Cook.

Labor’s majority is so big it could lose a record number of seats and still have its second best-ever election result.

With the Liberals holding just two seats out of 59 in the Lower House, Elmo could be leader of the ALP and Labor would still enjoy a third term.

The Liberal Party knows it’s on a hiding to nothing and appears to be keeping its financial powder dry for the Federal campaign.

That campaign could change if there’s a sense that Trump-mania translated into more conservative votes in WA than expected.

Washington is 18,000km from Perth but the pugnacious US President is writ large over this election.

Reporters from The West Australian newspaper have talked to hundreds of voters over the past few weeks and most are keener to discuss American politics than anything local.

It’s clear that many Australians are exasperated by woke culture and the WA Liberals are trying to tap into that wave of frustration without making it look like they’re lurching to the right.

Saturday’s poll on the west coast is a litmus test of how successful they are.

That’s assuming, of course, voters here are smart enough to know that the red and blue teams in America don’t match the red and blue teams in Australia

Who knows whether local punters understand that being a big-L Liberal in Australia is very different to being a small-l liberal in America?

The most recent opinion poll suggests Labor will take 42 seats — one more than Mark McGowan secured in 2017 to oust Colin Barnett.

It would be a comfortable win but nobody in the ALP is remotely comfortable because nobody in politics trusts polls.

Brexit and Trump have demonstrated that people are perfectly happy, gleeful in fact, to tell pollsters one thing and do something completely different when they roll up to vote.

The anonymity of the polling booth allows voters to vent their frustration without the hassle of getting into an argument at the dinner table.

They did it 20 years ago by quietly voting for One Nation and they might do it again.

The simplicity of Trumpian politics is even more seductive than Pauline Hanson’s “f..k off we’re full” manta.

The million-dollar question locally is, how pissed off are Australians with the status quo?

His greatest gift is his ability to see things in black and white even when they are the haziest of greys.

American energy producers and steelmakers getting undercut by cheaper imports?

Make the imports more expensive by imposing tariffs.

Want to end the war in Ukraine early?

Let Zelensky run out of bullets.

Got to cut government spending?

Start with the money going overseas through foreign aid programs.

Last financial year the US Government spent $US1.83 trillion more than it took in in revenue.

Even the dumbest American voter knows that can’t keep happening and the choice is obvious.

Cut funding to US schools or the schools in Latin America that are subsidised by US AID?

Slash the budget of the Californian national guard or stop sending billions in arms to Europe to fight a war that’s 9000km away?

And hang the consequences.

The steelworkers of Pittsburgh aren’t second-guessing the merit of tariffs on Mexican iron imports.

You don’t worry about the inflationary impact of a global trade war tomorrow when you don’t have enough work today.

Tell people living in Detroit that money is better spent on social welfare programs in Asia or Africa.

Try explaining to a waitress in Texas who can’t afford to retire that her taxes need to subsidise the defence of western Europe because governments there have prioritised spending on social welfare over the military.

That woman in Houston is still working so some waiter in Paris can retire early with a full state pension.

It’s nuts.

Trump’s saying what a critical mass of Americans are now thinking — that the world’s been living on Washington’s credit card for long enough.

The million-dollar question locally is, how pissed off are Australians with the status quo?

Are we a nation of secret deplorables? Is the sensible centre about to move to the right?

If the WA Liberals perform better than expected, you can expect from frantic exit-polling to work out why it happened.

Will voters be more comfortable telling the truth after the fact than before?

Probably not.

AI should be making polls more accurate but in 2025 election campaigning is more about gut feel than ever before.