Morgan: 59 to 41 in Labor’s favour
The Morgan poll of 924 voters over the weekend of 16-17 December 2006 has confirmed Kevin Rudd’s landslide lead in the polls. If an election were held last weekend, Labor would have won with 59 per cent of the national two-party preferred vote. This headline prediction is the same as for the previous weekend.
The primary vote predictions were 35.5 per cent for the Coalition and 49 per cent for Labor.
The pollster’s pearls of wisdom:
Following last week’s jump in support, the ALP’s new Rudd/Gillard team have maintained its significant lead over the Howard Government — leading by 18% on a two-party preferred basis.
It will be interesting to see whether the ALP will be able to maintain this advantage into 2007, once the ‘honeymoon period’ is over.
When you have an 18 point lead in a poll — you can quibble the sample size, you can quibble the timing, and you can even quibble the inherent systemic bias — yet none of these quibbles are sufficient to turn around the underlying result. This (like its predecessor) is a bloody good poll for Labor and a shocker for the Coalition.
Howard will need to (and I suspect he will) pull out all stops to vilify Rudd and Labor at every opportunity. Even the slightest misstep from Rudd will be slammed with the full force of Howard’s ire and ridicule. If Howard doesn’t, the beautification will go unchallenged and St Kevin will win the next election.
Whereas I thought Howard would have vanquished Beazley, I find the Rudd v Howard challenge much harder to call. In 2004, Latham disintegrated because he was lazy and flakey. Rudd is neither. I suspect that even with the full impact of Howard’s considerable political skills, Rudd has achieved sufficient sanctification to win. Post honeymoon, Rudd only needs to keep one in four of those romanced by Labor since the last election to win the 2007 Federal election.
As I said, the outcome of the next election is a much harder call now that Rudd has taken up Labor’s cudgel.
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