Newspoll: 56 to 44 in Labor’s favour
When I first glanced at today’s headlines — Howard checks Rudd’s march — Kevin’s sizzle not snag-free — Howard finds fertile ground for support — I was expecting to read about a polling improvement for the Howard Government. What I found was a flat line.
The national two-party preferred vote share prediction was unchanged on the previous Newspoll: 56 to 44 in Labor’s favour. The Coalition’s predicted primary vote was unchanged on 39 per cent. Labor’s primary vote prediction had risen two points to 48 per cent. As Dennis Shanahan noted, “Rudd would win handsomely with these numbers.”
Worryingly for the Coalition, with both the most recent Newspoll and Morgan polls, we are perhaps seeing the trend moving average return to the Coalition since March 2007 beginning to slow. This trend must average around a percentage point per month between now and a late 2007 election for the Coalition to be in a competitive position. An earlier election would require a faster trend.
Being just over half way through the election year, the other worrying trend for the Coalition would be the emerging comparison with 1996.
On the positive side for the Coalition, the Prime Minister’s satisfaction rating has been improving gradually, and his net satisfaction rating is positive for the first time since the middle of March. Also, after being 13 points behind Rudd in the middle of March, and 12 points behind in the middle of May, Howard has drawn almost level to Rudd as the preferred Prime Minister. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s improved performance in the attitudinal polls, Shanahan reported,
The Coalition’s continued poor polling has caused concern within the Government and speculation that Mr Howard could be forced to step aside.
As an aside, Martin O’Shannessy, the new CEO of Newspoll, wrote a bloody good piece on how question design can influence poll results.
The usual opinion poll graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.
Update: Some have asked how does 2007 compare with 2001 and 2004. The answer is as follows.
