A Liberal State premier is more popular among younger voters than boomers because of a controversial proposed AFL stadium, a new poll shows.

Jeremy Rockliff, 55, is bucking the trend of voters getting more conservative the older they get with a new DemosAU poll showing him winning over 44 per cent of Tasmanian voters aged 18 to 34, unusually making young adults his strongest base of support.

His Liberal Party’s support among the State’s youngest voters was more than the combined total for new 41-year-old Labor Opposition Leader Josh Willie’s party on 24 per cent and the Greens on 20 per cent.

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In a strange twist, the Labor Party’s strongest support, at 27 per cent, was among the 55-plus demographic, covering boomers and older Generation X voters. This was still below the Liberal Party’s 38 per cent backing for the oldest voting group.

DemosAU head of research George Hasanakos said the Liberal minority government’s proposed stadium at Macquarie Point in Hobart, for a new Tasmania Devils AFL team, had overturned the usual adage of younger voters usually being more left-wing.

“Normally, parties of the right do well with older voters and parties of the left do well with younger voters,” he told The Nightly.

“Whilst this is one poll, and do need to look at it cautiously, the fact we even have this outcome is very unusual.

“It’s looked at as an AFL stadium, but it is generally about entertainment – sports, concerts. I would suggest younger voters look at it as giving Tasmania some of the entertainment value that is seen in larger cities of Australia.”

Despite being in power since 2014, the Liberal Party had the strongest primary vote of 41 per cent, marking a 1.1 per cent swing to the government since the July election that failed to see the government win a majority, the October poll of 1021 Tasmanians found.

This was despite Budget blowouts associated with the new Finnish-built Spirit of Tasmania ferries, with berth infrastructure costs ballooning from $90 million to $493 million.

A major terminal upgrade is also required at Devonport, that wasn’t originally planned for, and a $75 million taxpayer-funded bailout for ferry company TT-Line.

State Treasury in June also revealed Tasmania’s net debt would hit $13 billion by 2027-28 with a $1 billion deficit forecast for this financial year.

Despite the government’s poor financial record, the Opposition Labor Party’s vote was weaker at 24 per cent, marking a 1.9 per cent swing against the party since the last election sparked by an ALP-led no confidence motion against the minority government.

The Greens were on 15 per cent, a small increase of 0.6 per cent. Tasmania’s two left-wing parties still have less combined support than the Liberal Party.

Mr Rockliff was also the preferred premier, winning 46 per cent support compared with 34 per cent for his Labor opponent Mr Willie, who replaced Dean Winter as leader after the election.

Despite being the voters’ choice at a State level, the Liberal Party holds no Federal lower house seats, after losing the regional electorates of Bass and Braddon at the May poll.

Federally, Labor holds four out of five House of Representatives seats, with independent Andrew Wilkie representing the Hobart-based electorate of Clark.