ALP would easily win election "held now"
Five weeks since the last Poll Roundup, things have not improved for the Turnbull government in opinion-poll horse-racing land. If anything, things have got worse. We've had twin 53-47s to Labor from Newspoll and an Essential run of 52-53-54-54-53. Closer 2PP readings from ReachTEL (52 then 51 for ALP) have arisen only because of the use of respondent preferences, and new entrant YouGov has produced a 49-51 followed by a 52-48 lead by a new respondent preferencing method off primaries that offer the government no more joy than the others. (More on that later). I'm not aggregating YouGov until later this week after its third poll has arrived, but my overall read of the others comes out at 53.2 to Labor this week. Here's the smoothed aggregate:
The rot looks increasingly set in, with no large or lasting movement away from 53-47 since the start of the year. As with the Gillard government, voters so far do not give this government credit for passing legislation or policy announcements. In polling terms, everything the government sends out comes back dead. History doesn't say this position can't be won from, but it will probably need something large and unexpected to rebound in the government's favour.
