From here, PM can see the path to the summit

Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media at the Hawkesbury River in North Richmond, Sydney on Sunday. Picture: AAP

On these Newspoll numbers, Scott Morrison can win the election.

The numbers alone won’t do it, but through incumbency, momentum and a strong, mistake-free campaign, the Coalition can overcome the odds.

While the Coalition is still ­behind in the two-party-preferred Newspoll figure — 48 to Labor’s 52 per cent — it’s not too far ­behind at the start of an election campaign and demonstrates that the “back-in-the-black” budget has grabbed the attention of voters at the most crucial time.

John Howard called the 2004 election while behind in Newspoll and went on to win with an ­increased majority — of course he had more seats to gamble with in the first place.

Vitally for the Coalition, the primary vote has risen to 38 per cent and Labor’s has dropped to 37 per cent and this means, while the Coalition is still behind, Labor can’t win in its own right.

As was the case in the NSW election with an incumbent Liberal-Nationals government slated to lose, the campaign mattered and the Coalition won.

The odds are still heavily against a re-elected federal ­Coalition government, which has lost its majority and been savaged in electoral redistributions to the point of being five seats away from government before the campaign begins.

But the budget, with a mixture of traditional appeal to economic management through debt-and-deficit reduction, long-term tax cuts and targeted spending on roads, rail and dams, has delivered a “budget bounce” to the ­Coalition.

Voters seem aware of the real choice between the vastly different tax and economic plans on offer and seem to be saying Josh Frydenberg got the balance right.

A strong, positive poll result from a budget has virtually been written off for more than a decade and considered extinct.

Not only is the budget dodo back from the dead, this is the best-received budget since the big giveaway Howard government budgets from 2004 to 2007 when the economy was riding on the mining investment boom, there were big tax cuts, budget surpluses and no national debt.

The breakdown of voters’ ­responses to the detailed budget questions shows voters not only think they will be better off but so, too, is the economy. Also, people in all demographic groups rated the budget as being “good” over “bad” and with even Labor voters narrowly split at 28 per cent “bad” and 23 per cent “good”.

The latest Newspoll survey shows the Coalition did get a budget bounce, has lifted its primary vote to 38 per cent, got to its best two-party-preferred result since Morrison ­became Prime Minister and lifted the Liberal leader even further in front of Bill Shorten in voter satisfaction and as preferred leader.

Newspoll surveys have played an enormous role in Liberal politics since 2015 when Malcolm Turnbull used 30 losing Newspoll surveys in a row to oust Tony ­Abbott and then failed his own test to be removed last year.

The continuing failure of the Coalition to get ahead of Labor and lift its primary vote may still be the end of Morrison as well. But Newspoll’s importance to party morale, its consistency arising from its regularity, its record on budget polling and impact on political momentum make this particular poll the most important for the Coalition’s future in a decade.

With the Liberal primary vote on the rise as Labor and One ­Nation dip, the two-party-preferred vote-difference closing as the election approaches and Morrison extending his personal lead over Shorten, the Coalition can win from here if it’s good enough and if voters accept the appeal to long-term economic management and trust the Coalition over Labor.