Election Diary Monday 1 July 2013 - Momentum all with Labor but that's not surprising


Momentum all with Labor but that's not surprising. With the honeymoon polls to start the day, a disability scheme launch to follow and then a new ministry to swear in little wonder that the day was a good one for Labor, The Coalition sensibly went quietly.
Not that the Coalition will have found the day all that depressing for the news from the pollsters was better for them than they might have expected. The change in Prime Minister has added around six points to Labor but that still leaves the Coalition comfortably in front. Something more like a gain of 10 points would have been my guess.
Essential Research
To explain the Essential Research figures. Normally this pollster publishes a two week moving average and those are the figures shown as "this week" above. The last column, with half that normal sample, is what happened after Labor's leadership change.
Not much difference really and I had expected all the pollsters to find an improvement for the government more in line with what Roy Morgan Research reported this afternoon: Labor 51.5% on a two party preferred basis compared with 48.5% for the Coalition. That was an improvement of seven percentage points from last week.

Picking an election date. Past experience, which admittedly is limited when elections are held only every two and a bit years or so, suggests that a leadership change results in a bounce in support that evaporates a little as the election day approaches. There's aw definite argument for going sooner rather than later but then there are very few leaders who will call an election when they think they will lose.
What Kevin Rudd ends up doing with no doubt depend on what his own pollsters tell him over the next week.




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