Who is Jess Wilson? Victoria's Liberal leader and the November election

Victorian Liberal leader Jess Wilson could become the state's first elected female premier at the November state election, according to current polling as reported in a Guardian profile.

Wilson, 36, has been Victorian Leader of the Opposition since November 2025. She was Shadow Treasurer, the opposition's spokesperson on money matters, from October 2025 and has held that role alongside the leadership, according to the Victorian Parliament's member page. She was elected to the state parliament in 2022 and represents the seat of Kew.

Her father, Ron Wilson, represented the seat of Bennettswood in Melbourne's eastern suburbs from 1999 to 2003. Jess Wilson first visited the Victorian parliament at nine years old, to see him. She has a two-year-old son, Patrick.

In DemosAu's September poll, the Victorian Coalition, the Liberal and National parties together, led Labor 52 to 48 on two-party preferred. That measure counts the votes of the two main parties after preferences are allocated. In the same poll, Wilson had a personal rating of +8, while Premier Ben Carroll was on -14.

Wilson also has a large online following. She has close to 100,000 Instagram followers, about six times as many as Carroll, according to the Guardian profile. In March, she posted a video of herself in a swimsuit leaping into a pool, timed to the day the 2026 Commonwealth Games would have opened in Victoria. The video drew more than 2 million views on her social media accounts alone. The Guardian reports that cancelling the Games cost taxpayers $600 million.

The Victorian Liberal Party has styled its campaign 'Jess Wilson's Liberal Victoria'. The Coalition has been in opposition for 12 years. The Liberals and Nationals have also launched her Fresh Start Tour, which will visit every one of Victoria's 88 Legislative Assembly districts, the lower house of state parliament, alongside local Liberal and Nationals team members.