Opinion polls
Two polling stories this morning.
First, according to the Australian,
After the first week of the West Australian campaign and the exit of Mark Latham as federal leader, Labor and the Coalition are now deadlocked on 50-50 in two-party-preferred terms.
With the federal party leadership resolved in favour of popular West Australian MP Kim Beazley, Labor has reached its highest level of primary support since taking office in 2001.
And while the Liberal-led Coalition maintains a slight lead in the primary vote, its support has fallen dramatically. According to the latest Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian, the gap between the state ALP and the Coalition parties on primary vote is now just two percentage points — a far cry from the 14-percentage-point gulf that separated them in December. The survey, taken last weekend, found support for the Coalition had fallen from 49 per cent in December to 44per cent.
Support for Labor increased from 35 per cent at the end of last year to 42 per cent.
It will be interesting to see whether the betting market moves as a result of this poll. Update: This evening Labor is on $2.10 and the Coalition is on $1.65 - so a bit of a bounce for Dr Gallop. The implied win probabilities from these odds are 56% for the Coalition and 44% for Labor.
The other poll in this morning’s papers was “leaked” to the SMH. Apparently internal Labor polling suggests the Liberals could win the Werriwa by-election following the departure of Mark Latham. The SMH played along and headed the story ALP poll nightmare: Liberals can win Latham seat.
I smell a rat. The give-away was the following paragraph:
A senior figure in the party, who asked not to be named, said the byelection would be extremely tough, because the party was starting from behind, but that Mr Beazley would play a big part in the campaign.
I reckon this ” leak” looks like a strategic bid by Labor for under-dog status. It could also be a warning to the electorate. Do not punish Labor for Latham’s exit, because if you do, you might just end up with a Liberal. Yeah right.