Albanese’s popularity has plummeted. Will it cost him the election?

There’s a line that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese trots out whenever he gets the chance. “My mother raised me with three great faiths,” he says. “The South Sydney Rabbitohs, the Australian Labor Party and the Catholic Church.”

It’s a trio of creeds that frame Albanese as the working-class boy he was, raised in public housing by a single mum on disability payments. Paired with the dental work, weight loss, trim suits and fresh glasses he donned ahead of the last election, Albanese had a compelling image as a man from humble origins made good. It worked.

Albanese took the top job with soaring popularity. His government enjoyed an unusually long honeymoon period. Voters surveyed in 2022 viewed their new leader as genuine, honest and relatable. His net likeability rating jumped to 34 per cent in this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor.

But after almost three years presiding over a sluggish economy and bruising referendum defeat, views have shifted. More voters say they find him disappointing and, sometimes, weak.

They are looking at his personality afresh, too, after a $4.3 million clifftop house purchase, tetchy media appearances and a week of attention on his free flight upgrades. His likeability rating – calculated by comparing the number of people who rate him positively and negatively – has sunk to minus 17, according to this masthead’s Resolve poll.

It’s not unusual for first-term prime ministers to lose ground on popularity: that fate met Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. Nor is likeability everything. Australians have told researchers they are more likely to cast their vote based on policy than personality.

But as incumbent leaders fall across the West and polls show a decline in core support for Labor to a new low ahead of the federal election due by May, Albanese’s popularity will be a small but important piece of the electoral chessboard.

Pollster Jim Reed, who oversees the Resolve Political Monitor for this masthead, says views of Albanese started dipping in 2023.

“Initially, Albanese was seen as ‘genuine’ and a ‘good guy’, but then we started to get a more critical view of him being ‘distracted’, ‘ideological’, ‘not performing’ as the [Indigenous Voice referendum loss] and the cost-of-living issue started to bite. The latest judgment is really one where people still don’t hate him but are ‘disappointed’ that he hasn’t done more, and sometimes [see him as] weak’,” Reed says.

Albanese’s tumble comes as Peter Dutton takes the opposite trajectory: the opposition leader’s net likeability has risen from minus 12 a year ago to a net rating of zero. On the crucial question of preferred prime minister, however, they remain neck and neck.

“The way to read this is that punters are unhappy with Albanese’s work and its outcomes, and this has rubbed off on their general view of him as a person, but in a relative choice with Dutton, he is still competitive,” Reed says.

This is what Labor strategists are focused on. In 2022, their task was convincing the public Albanese was up to the job. The party was so eager to display Albanese’s fresh look to new audiences that it put him forward for the cover of women’s magazine InStyle. A car crash in early 2021 spurred him to talk about his new outlook on life. He also had a new relationship to launch, with now-fiancee Jodie Haydon.

Anthony Albanese, alongside his now-fiancee Jodie Haydon and son Nathan, leaves Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 2021 after the then-opposition leader was involved in a car crash.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

But Labor no longer needs to sell voters so heavily on Albanese’s image. They know him, and as prime minister, Albanese is already a de facto credible candidate – it is Dutton who is introducing himself as a potential leader with softball podcast interviews and an emphasis on his working-class roots. In 2025, Labor will emphasise Albanese’s policies and agenda rather than remaking his personal brand.

Still, critics say Albanese’s fall in popularity will add another hurdle to an already competitive election campaign. They say his biggest stumbling block with voters has been appearing out of touch with people’s hip-pocket concerns.

“His personal narrative no longer does the sort of heavy lifting it used to,” says Kos Samaras, a former Labor strategist who now runs political consultancy Redbridge. “Incumbency, coupled with some of the personal stories around his purchases and lifestyle, has not helped. It basically feeds into the overall sentiment that he is not one of them.”

Australian National University academic Andrew Hughes, who specialises in political marketing, thinks Albanese’s purchase of a beach home on the NSW Central Coast in October has hurt. “It’s hard to say ‘I relate to your mortgage struggles’ when you’ve just bought a multimillion-dollar house on the ocean. He has every right to, but perception is everything,” he says.

Hughes says Albanese’s team should round out his image over the summer to revive voters’ perception that he is a man of conviction. “Since he’s become PM, he’s become more cautious, and that makes us believe he’s not being authentic,” he says.

“They should put stories out on podcasts, magazines, to show a different side to him: issues he’s confronted in the job and how they’ve changed him as a person. Because we haven’t seen that yet … You have to do it now, though. This is the time where people have the headspace to process that messaging.”

Hughes says Albanese’s 51-point turnaround in the Resolve likeability poll in just over two years is a case of “bad numbers, no matter how you try to spin it”.

But Megan Lane, a former Labor strategist, is unsurprised. “We tend to see the likeability of political leaders fall over time – as prime minister, you’re the chief bearer of bad news. It is what you’d expect from a PM going for a second term,” she says.

“Albanese has benefited from being likeable for most of his political career, which means on this scale, he has further to fall than most. He’s the politician that ordinary Australians always thought they could have a beer with – this is the PM who has previously been known as ‘DJ Albo’.”

‘DJ Albo’ plays at an ALP event in Brisbane in 2015.Credit: Robert Shakespeare

Labor is not overly concerned. Community research described to this masthead tells Labor that some voters are frustrated by their financial situation and blame the government but still think Albanese is a good person. It is also buoyed by polling that shows voters are not rushing to elect the Coalition.

As incumbent governments around the world are punished over inflation, Labor will brush off the popularity polls as a symptom of the backlash leaders everywhere are facing. And by those benchmarks, Albanese is performing well: according to approval ratings tracked by Morning Consult, the prime minister was outperforming leaders of comparable countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada at the end of last year.

Toby Ralph, a marketing guru who has worked on scores of political campaigns, including John Howard’s, agrees that likeability is not everything. “Were it central to success, we’d be governed by The Wiggles, Kylie [Minogue] and a labradoodle,” he says.

Nor will any leader stay popular forever. “Political careers follow the same ghastly trajectory. You think you’ve been elected because the punters love you, but actually, you were just left standing when they kicked the last one out,” he says.

“On your best day, 52 per cent of people like you and 40 per cent think you’re a prick. Then it gets worse. The media crawl all over you to unearth gotcha moments, and the opposition have teams of talented experts whose job is to ruin your life.”

Ralph says Albanese is “a genuinely good bloke”. “As, perhaps unexpectedly, is Dutton. But nice is never enough. The great trick of leadership is having the capacity to get disparate hordes of opinionated people to take a step toward a common goal simultaneously,” he says.

This is where Albanese needs to gain an edge. “Decisiveness, toughness, speed, coercion and a hundred other skills are needed, and few have them all. While Dutton has been working hard to soften his image because he needed to, Albanese would be mistaken if he believes he should,” Ralph says.

“He needs to demonstrate he has a hard edge that he’ll employ for the good of the country.”

Tony Barry, a former Liberal strategist also at Redbridge, also diagnoses the perception of “weakness” as Albanese’s biggest problem. “We’re always trying to differentiate from our opponents on salient issues or salient attributes. This is where Dutton can pivot off that weakness narrative. The truth in campaigns is ‘strong and wrong’ beats ‘weak and right’,” he says.

The Coalition has sought to capitalise on both of those impressions, regularly labelling Albanese as “weak” and “out of touch”. Labor is confident that Albanese’s performance, particularly on the world stage in managing Australia’s relationship with China, has demonstrated he is a strong leader.

Lane says he will remain electable if he can show voters he is the best candidate to make their lives easier. “Likeability matters more where voting isn’t compulsory. In Australia, there’s no doubt that likeability matters, but what matters more is they can trust you not to make their lives any harder. It’s secondary to voters’ self-interest,” she says.

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