The Dog Ate My Narrowing.

Newspoll Tuesday started off with a bang. A 1706 sample poll giving the ALP a 58/42 headline TPP result.

The primaries are running 51/38 against the Coalition and the big result is “No Change”, just as it’s been since the beginning of March. But since when has the absence of change ever stopped us from ranting endlessly about these polls.

With a 1706 sample, the MoE should be about 2.5%, but Newspoll says 3% so who am I to argue – could be the weighting variance causing that, or maybe Newspoll just cut and paste the usual minutia into their output which you can find in The Oz HERE.

[George informs us via the lovely Ms Marks of Newspoll , that the MoE is indeed 2.5%]

But let us first look at the beauty contest – the infamous preferred PM numbers that we were assured, not that long, would lead to better times for the Coalition.

Rudd is up 2 to 50, Howard is down 2 to 37.Looking at these numbers since November 2006 using the monthly Newspoll average series we get:

Remember the story “Howard Checks Rudds March”? The lecture we were all given by those that own Newspoll about how the Howard resurgence was imminent because of the Preferred PM measurement? You’re lucky if you can remember, because you don’t seem to be able to read it any more on The Oz site. The original story appears to have been replaced with this.

So I thought we’d just mention it again – for the sake of nostalgia and all 😉

Moving right along to the satisfaction ratings, Howard’s down 4 to 43 and Rudd is up 3 to 63. Looking at the monthly Newspoll average ratings over the period since the last election we get:

And not to be left out, the dissatisfaction ratings for each:

Now we move onto the main game – the primary votes, again using the Newspoll monthly averages, followed by the two party preferred vote:

 

 

 

So what to make if it all?

That growth in the ALP primary vote since May could be dangerous. So saying it might just be noise, but if I were a political party, I’d rather have noise of that shape than noise of the shape the Coalition has been experiencing since May. Are the Rudd honeymooners coming back to the Rudd camp after playing tootsies with him but leaving in the March-May period?

Could be – too soon to say, but something to keep an eye on anyway.

The other question to ask is where the hell did The Narrowing go?

We were assured it would have turned up by now. Calling the election was supposed to be the circuit breaker…. Well, so we were told. Then again, the budget was supposed to be circuit breaker and didn’t that just go smashing.

There was also something in the poll to feed our inner Crosby Textors; Newspoll asked a question today of “Which political party do you think will win the Federal Election?” and the results were 52 to the ALP (down 5 since August) and 30 for the Coalition (up 2 since August). “Win Expectations” are still killing the Coalition as per the June OzTrack 33.
Another economic management question popped up in the Newspoll of the type we analysed the other day in “Does Economic Management Influence The Primary Vote?” Sure enough, the regression results hold with the ALP increase in the economic management question (up 4 to 37) walking hand in hand with an increase in their primary vote. Also remember back then, we found no relationship between the answers to the “which leader do you think would better be more capable of handling the economy” question and the primary vote of the Coalition – despite some commentators in certain newspapers making claims to the contrary with zero evidence to support the proposition.

Finally, there was another question about those dreaded soft voters, and three cheers to Martin O’Shannessy for including them again.

Just like it was the last time these questions were asked, the ALP vote is slightly stronger than the Coalition vote.

So let the analysis begin. I’ll probably post an update later in the day.

 

UPDATE:

George sent a fabulous little pic showing the Newspoll primaries since the beginning of the year, complete with the shaded MoE.

Since March, the ALP primary looks like its been stuck somewhere around 47/49 with the Coalition primary vote stuck somewhere around 38/39 since June.