Election 2022: It’s game on as parties are no longer polls apart in Newspoll

Scott Morrison’s claim to a fourth Coalition term will be based on the case for stability and staying the course during times of deep uncertainty and risk. Picture: Jason Edwards

It’s now game on.

The first Newspoll of the 2022 campaign race will give Scott Morrison hope and galvanise the troops. The election is theoretically winnable for the Coalition from here.

The contest was always expected to tighten heading into an election as the focus sharpened. And it will have to tighten a lot more for Morrison.

But as voters begin to switch on, popular support for Labor and Anthony Albanese has demonstrably softened.

Labor’s primary vote had fallen four points over two polls conducted only a week apart.

Morrison has also increased his margin over Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister following a neck-and-neck race for the past two months and a week of character assessments of Morrison from disaffected Liberals.

Whatever the grand plan for Labor was over the past month, it hasn’t worked. The government is back in the race, against the odds.

And Morrison has been here before.

Labor’s primary vote has contracted from 41 per cent to 37 per cent in the space of just a few weeks. It is now back to the same level of support in the first week of the 2019 election campaign.

The Coalition was then marginally ahead on a primary vote of 38 per cent – compared to 36 per cent now.

The two party preferred vote was then 48/52.

Morrison’s margin over Albanese as the better prime minister is now within the margin of error as his ascendancy over Bill Shorten.

With both leaders in negative territory in terms of their net approval ratings, this is now a – contest between the devil you know and the devil hiding in the closet.

Anthony Albanese risks being exposed as a leader lacking in substance and ideas. Picture: AAP

Albanese has sought to frame this election as a referendum on Morrison’s leadership. This has worked to destroy Morrison’s appeal until now but has failed to deliver a demonstrable benefit to Albanese.

But voters should strap in. It’s about to get ugly.

The 2022 federal election race will be one of the most brutally personal election campaigns since 1975 as Labor seeks to commit Scott Morrison’s character to trial and the Coalition warns against a roll of the dice with Anthony Albanese.

It will be a war of attrition between two leaders, both unpopular but neither strongly preferred over the other. A bitter contest over personality rather than policy.

This is Labor’s chosen strategy.

A referendum on Morrison himself rather than a battle of ideas. A choice between a leader many voters may no longer like and one that very few know.

This will cloud the substance of a profound political dispute.

At stake in this election is the strength and management of the economy, the private sector recovery, employment, Australia’s role in the world, its sovereignty and defence of the nation.

All this as the country faces more dangerous times globally and regionally.

Morrison’s claim to a fourth Coalition term will be based on the case for stability and staying the course during times of deep uncertainty and risk.

His argument being that despite some mistakes along the way, his government got the nation through one of its greatest challenges since World War II.

The Prime Minister’s challenge is to own a forward agenda rather than expect to be rewarded for past achievements, mindful that voters are rarely grateful.

Albanese risks being exposed as a leader lacking in substance and ideas.

The opposition is undeniably in a winning poll position at the start of the campaign.

But two factors may play against the strategy that has gotten Labor and Albanese this far.

The more brutal the campaign, the more likely that disaffected voters will deliver a plague on both houses.