Newspoll: Even when voters aren’t particularly excited by either, someone still has to win

Anthony Albanese speaks at the West Ashfield Leagues Club in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Flavio Brancaleone

The Morrison government now faces a considerable political challenge heading into an election year.

Momentum has stalled, popular support is at perilous levels for the Coalition, and the Prime Minister has been personally damaged.

But as bad as it may look, it is by no measure insurmountable. And voters are less cautious than they were last time to assume Labor will win.

 

Scott Morrison and the party have been here before and pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

They are now being asked to do it again.

Critical to this test will be a bitter personal contest between Morrison and Anthony Albanese with one key metric likely to determine the outcome.

At the same point in the cycle prior to the 2019 election, the battle for popular support had the Coalition in a worse position. The December 10, 2018 Newspoll recorded a primary vote for the Coalition of 35 per cent and Labor at 41 per cent.

Today it is 36 and 38 per cent respectively.

The two-party preferred split was 55-45 in Labor’s favour. It currently sits at 53-47.

With Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and other minor parties now at 16 per cent, there is a big chunk of the conservative vote now parked away from the Coalition.

This was about the same level – 15 per cent – in December 
2018, although the split was 7 and 8 per cent rather than 3 and 13 now.

Enough of these came back to the Coalition on polling day.

Morrison’s approval ratings in the same poll had him at a net negative of minus three. Albeit, he was barely four months into the job.

It only reached parity on the day before the election.

Bill Shorten’s net approval ratings were minus 15. It never recovered.

Albanese’s approval ratings today are minus six.

While the Labor leader is now slightly ahead of Morrison for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, again, the polls show voters aren’t particularly thrilled with either of them at the moment.

It is perhaps the measure of who voters think would make a better prime minister that is the one to watch from here on in.

Morrison led Shorten on this metric 44 to 36 in the December 10, 2018, poll and maintained the lead up until polling day. Voters failed to make the leap of faith Labor was asking of them.

Morrison currently leads Albanese by a similar margin of 45 to 36.

If there is to be a change of government, all the numbers have to line up for Labor, including this one.

A Labor primary vote in the high 30s, a 2PP where it is now, Albanese ahead in approvals and ahead or at least in touch with Morrison as preferred prime minister.

All those four have to be in line by the finish.

Albanese’s path to victory may well rest with whether he can try and shift this last number demonstrably in his favour.

The challenge for Albanese is how to turn a strategy of small target politics into a claim for leadership.