Newspoll: 51 to 49 in the Coalition’s favour
The latest Newspoll two-party preferred result is a tick in the Government’s direction. The Coalition received 51 per cent compared to 49 per cent for Labor. This is a statistically insignificant change from 50-50 earlier in the month.
On the primary votes, the Government is on 45 per cent and Labor is on 39 per cent. The general rule of thumb is that Labor needs 40 per cent or more of the primary vote to win government. Primary vote support for the Greens is 5 per cent, which is at the low end of their typical range since the last election.
Today’s media focused on Beazley’s poor performance in the attitudinal polling:
- Satisfaction with Beazley’s performance fell from 39 per cent earlier this month to a record low 33 per cent last weekend; down from 52 per cent in mid April
- Dissatisfaction with Beazley’s performance rose from 45 to 46 per cent
- Satisfaction with Howard’s performance rose from 47 to 49 per cent
- Dissatisfaction with Howard’s performance fell from 44 to 40 per cent
- 55 per cent of those polled preferred Howard as Prime Minister (up four) while 25 preferred Beazley (down four)
Since the 2004 election, Newspoll has been typically more favourable to the government in its opinion polls than Morgan or ACNielsen. Much of the difference between Newspoll and Morgan in 2002 and 2003 was due to their different polling methodologies. Newspoll used the 2001 election result to allocate preferences and Morgan used its polling. In 2004 both used polling, and in 2005 both have used the 2004 election result to allocate preferences. Paradoxically yet, since the 2004 election, Newspoll appears to favour the government by one or two percentage points over Morgan. I wonder why?
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