AC Neilsen: ALP 53 - LNP 47

Today, the Fairfax papers released an AC Nielsen poll that had the ALP's lead down from 58-42 back in March to 53-47.

I generally don't bother with AC Nielsen polls because they come out so irregularly that it's hard to draw any real trends from them.

They are the only poll that the Fairfax papers have, so when a result comes out like this they plug it for all it's worth.

So they pretty much down-played the fact that the ALP was still in an election winning position, and that Kevin Rudd is still at the stratospheric heights of 64% approval. And leads Turnbull 64-28 as preferred PM.

The dopiest comment came from the SNH's Peter Hartcher:
KEVIN RUDD has descended from the realm of the gods and become a political mortal.

Polled support for Rudd and his Government had been at unearthly levels since the day he took power a year and a half ago, a political infinity.

But in today's results we discover that Rudd's poll numbers, in just two months, have become distinctly earthy.

Earthy? Just ask yourself when 64% of the population agreed on anything. At the start of the film The American President, the President (played by Michael Douglas) is basking in giddy joy the fact that the latest poll has his job approval rating at 64%. But when Rudd gets a 64% rating? Accroding to the media, time to break glass and declare panic. I think not. But Hartcher doesn't see it that way:

Today's poll appears to confirm the expectation of a senior Liberal that the budget would mark the return to "normal politics."

If so, power in Australia is once more contestable rather than being a Rudd monopoly.

It might be an aberration, but two factors give some confidence that the poll marks a threshold, not a detour.
...
It seems more likely that the last year and a half has been the aberration, that we have now entered normalcy.

Get that? The last year and a half has been an aberration! You couldn't put the amount of delusion contained in that statement into a warehouse without some spilling out the doors.

But anyhoo, the Newspoll will come out late tonight, and will be in Tuesday's Australian. I'm predicting a 52-48 return on 2 party preferred (and for The Oz to go absolutely nuts). Rudd's satisfaction rating last time was 64%, I doubt there'll be much movement. And the Preferred PM? Last time 64-19. No real change is my prediction.

I also predict Turnbull will stay in negative net satisfaction territory.

We'll see.

UPDATE:

Well I was wrong - the Newspoll is 56-44, an improvement (of sorts) from the last one.

It seems the voters decided not to punish the ALP for the Budget, but merely to give Rudd a bit of a poke in the eye. His satisfaction rating fell from 64% to 58%.

Turnbull stays in net negative satisfaction territory.

More tomorrow.