Newspoll: ALP 55- LNP 45

Today I dopely forgot to tape Question Time, so no 'On the QT' today.

Today another Newspoll came out, and as it was on the 12 month anniversary of last year's election, it is a good one for seeing how the Rudd Government is going.

The result? It's as popular now, if not more so, than it was when it won the election last year. Then the Two Party Preferred result was ALP 52.7% -LNP 47.3%, now it's 55-45. Is this a blip? Nope let's look at the ALP's two party preferred result this year:
58, 57, 63, 59, 59, 61, 57, 57, 57, 59, 55, 55, 57, 57, 56, 56, 55, 55, 54, 55, 55. (average of 57%).
Not much movement there (well apart from the unreal 63% - which no one believed).

How about wonder man, Malcolm Turnbull? How is he tracking? Well, when he came on board the ALP's 2PP was 56. It's now 55. I don't think we can say that is a significant inroad.

What about on the preferred PM stakes? I had a lot of friends who this year were saying "wait till Turnbull becomes leader, then Rudd will be in for a fight".

Well the latest Preferred PM is Rudd 63%-Turnbull 21%. Ouch.

Let's look at Rudd's Preferred PM rating this year:
61, 68, 70, 73, 70, 73, 71, 72, 70, 66, 68, 64, 65, 66, 68, 65, 62, 54, 54, 59, 62, 63. (average of 65%)

So Turnbull took over when Rudd was beating Nelson 62-16 (22 uncommitted). Now it's 63-21 (16 uncommitted). Hardly a ringing endorsement of Turnbull.

Now of course this has nothing to do with policies, and you can say Turnbull is taking the fight up to Rudd in a way that Nelson never did etc etc. But to be honest, leaders live and die by their preferred PM rating. Nelson got killed in the media because he was so far behind Rudd; Turnbull by contrast is being given a pretty cruisey ride in my opinion - plenty of ,"he's the man for the job", "he is starting to make inroads", "Rudd is clearly worried" blather.

So praise be to George Megolagenis for saying it like it is:

The Coalition's primary vote has been below 40 per cent throughout the first year of the Rudd Government.

This is the worst sequence on record for the Coalition, which even in the dog days of Opposition in the 1980s consistently polled in the mid-40s.

Last weekend, Mr Rudd stretched his lead over Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister by two points, from 40 per cent to 42 per cent. This gap is in the same ballpark as the advantage Mr Rudd enjoyed over the previous Opposition leader, Brendan Nelson.

Back in one of my first posts, I wrote of another 55-45 Newspoll:

Nelson is still in the teens when it comes to preferred PM, and I don’t think any poll will matter until the opposition leader is within 15% of Rudd on preferred PM. If Rudd stays above 50%, and Nelson or Turnbull or whoever can’t get above 35%, then the election will be a rout.

My opinion hasn't changed.

Regardless of commentary, the public seem content with Rudd and co at the moment. Sure this might change, but all beliefs that Turnbull would be Rudd's undoing have been shown to be incorrect. If the ALP's and Rudd's popularity goes down, it won't be because of Turnbull, but because of Rudd.