Poll Roundup: Sea Of Red Polling Ink At Start Of Election Year

After being in a merely historically dicey polling position for much of 2021, the Morrison Government starts this year in more serious trouble.  

Last night's was one of those Newspolls that deserves a quick post because of the dramatic nature of the figures.  The Morrison Government starts the year down 44-56 on primary votes of Coalition 34 Labor 41 Green 11 One Nation 3 Others 11.  Scott Morrison is on a net rating of -19 (38-57), Anthony Albanese is on net zero (by 2022!) (43-43) and Morrison leads on the skewed "Better Prime Minister" indicator by 43-41.

This all represents:

* The Coalition's worst Newspoll 2PP since it polled a pair of 44s in August-September 2018 immediately after Malcolm Turnbull was removed as Prime Minister.

* The Coalition's worst primary vote in the same period, and equal second-worst of all time.

* Labor's best primary vote since December 2018.

* Morrison's worst net satisfaction rating since the early 2020 bushfires, marginally above the -22 he sank to during that time.

* Albanese's best net satisfaction since March 2021.  Albanese is now 19 points ahead on comparative netsat after only taking the lead one poll ago.  

* Morrison's lowest lead on the skewed "Better Prime Minister" question since the bushfire period (in which time Albanese briefly led).

* However, one of the very few cases of a Prime Minister leading on Better PM while this far behind on voting intention.  Not a record in that regard, eg Morrison led by 6 in the second of the 44-56 Newspolls after the removal of Turnbull.

Poll Roundup: Why Is Resolve Diverging?

I last wrote a federal poll roundup in early August.  At that time I noted that the implied 2PP polling numbers of Newspoll, Morgan, Essential and Resolve this year had been more or less identical.  No new Essential voting intention polling has been seen since mid-July though another dump may appear within days.  

This is what we've seen since the last roundup:

* Newspoll (late August) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 36 Labor 40 Green 10 PHON 3 others 11)

* Newspoll (mid-Sept) 53-47 to Labor (Coalition 37 Labor 38 Green 10 PHON 3 others 12)

* Morgan (mid-August) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 37.5 Labor 37.5 Green 12.5 PHON 3.5 others 9)

* Morgan (late August) 54.5-45.5 to Labor (Coalition 37.5 Labor 38.5 Green 11.5 PHON 3 others 9.5)

* Morgan (mid-Sept) 52.5-47.5 to Labor (Coalition 38.5 Labor 35 Green 13 PHON 3 others 10.5)

* Resolve (mid-August) Coalition 40 Labor 32 Green 12 PHON 2 IND 10 others 3.  Last election 2PP would be very roughly 50-50 (my formula gives 50.3 to Labor) 

* Resolve (mid-Sept) Coalition 39 Labor 31 Green 10 PHON 4 IND 9 others 7.  Last election 2PP would be very roughly 51-49 to Coalition (my formula gives 51.1)

Now, it's true that Morgan's use of respondent preferences is inflating its leads for Labor (in the last three polls by an average of 0.9 points compared to last election preferences).  And it could be that the independent voters being (over-)reported by Resolve are actually much more left-leaning than the ones who split about 60-40 to Labor on preferences at the last election.  But still, one of these polls is very clearly not like the others.  Resolve has shown two consecutive Coalition primary leads of 8% while polls by other pollsters have had an average lead of minus 0.5.  Two Resolve polls in a row have come out as massive, beyond margin-of-error outliers. 

When Federal Polls Are 50-50, Oppositions Rarely Win

For nearly a year of federal polling, an unusual situation has existed.  The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has polled very high personal ratings, and large leads on Better Prime Minister scores, but the Coalition has struggled to build any meaningful two-party voting intention lead.  If polling is to be believed, an election held right now would be a close thing, though the government would probably survive.  

However, many observers just don't believe Labor is really at 50-50.  This is not surprising given that Newspoll was 3% out on the two-party preferred vote at the last election, so perhaps that's still the case and the government is 53-47 ahead and cruising.  (The history of polling failures elsewhere suggests probably not - every election cycle is different.)  But what I've noticed a fair bit is that people who don't believe the voting intention polling cite the PM's personal polling (or in some cases the primary votes) as evidence that the 2PP voting intention polling is wrong.   This doesn't make sense - why should voters give misleading answers on their current voting intention but not on what they think of the PM?  Or if sampling issues are causing the voting intention polling to be wrong, surely they would also drag the PM's personal ratings down (in which case he would actually be amazingly popular, and there would be a new issue of why he had only a modest 2PP lead instead of a massive one.)  

Poll Roundup And Seat Betting Watch: Ellis Impersonator Edition

2PP Aggregate 52.5 to Labor (unchanged)
On most recent polling Labor would win a majority if election held now, with around 83 seats.

There have not been many polls in this week of an Easter-fragmented campaign, and the one national poll that has come out hasn't changed the national picture all that much (except for One Nation).  Essential will be polling over Easter (more likely to work for an online than a phone pollster), Newspoll probably won't, and we'll have to see what else we might get.  It's been a scrappy start to the campaign with both major parties losing candidates from uncompetitive seats (after some dumpings foreshadowed tonight, the Coalition will have lost six!), and gaffes by both sides including some troubles for Bill Shorten on superannuation policy and climate change policy costs, while Scott Morrison can get away from any question he doesn't like by just declaring it to be "bubble stuff".  I don't know if anyone's paying attention to any of this at the moment out there in voter-land.

Poll Roundup: 2018 Year In Review

2PP Aggregate: 54.2 to Labor (last election preferences) (+0.2 since two weeks ago)
With One Nation adjustment: 53.6 to Labor
Labor would easily win election "held now"
Labor won all 66 public and three commissioned national polls released this year

With the release of this week's Ipsos and Essential polls, the polling year has probably come to an end.  If there are any late polls I will edit this piece and update it accordingly.

For a government that currently looks as stuffed as a Christmas turkey, the end of the year cannot come soon enough.  As the final poll of the year, Essential offered some respite having the government only six points behind (47-53) but this should be treated with some caution as there is an ongoing difference of opinion between Newspoll and Essential as to just how bad the Morrison government's situation is.  Since Scott Morrison became Prime Minister, Newspoll has had the Coalition primary on an average of just 35% and the Labor primary on 40%.  Essential, however, has had the Coalition primary only narrowly behind (on average 36.9-37.2).  On a 2PP basis Newspoll has had an average reading of just 45.25% for the Government, while Essential has had 46.6% - and this is even though Newspoll's preferencing method is more favourable to the Coalition's than Essential's.  Currently, with Newspoll and Essential coming out in different fortnights, my aggregate bobs around a bit depending on which one is out, rather than based on the Coalition making substantial gains or losses.  If this continues into the New Year I may apply corrections to both.

The Keating Aggregation 1990-1993

A bit of a special feature for today ...

25 years ago today Paul Keating's Labor government won re-election against the odds, having battled a recession and fallout from the mid-term removal of the previous Prime Minister Bob Hawke.  Among all Australian elections, 1993 stands out as an oddity, the one that breaks almost every predictive election model that can be thrown at it.  If you want to get a feeling of just how unexpected it was, check out Lateline from a couple of nights before.

It is easy to forget that in office Keating was a very unpopular Prime Minister, widely considered arrogant and abrasive, and blamed for comments about "the recession we had to have".  He did not poll a single positive Newspoll netsat in 109 consecutive Newspolls on the job.  Yet history has been kind to him, in part because of this alleged electoral miracle.

Poll Roundup: 2017 Year In Review

2PP Aggregate: 53.4 to Labor (-0.4 since last week, -0.8 in three weeks)
Labor would easily win election "held now"
Average for 2017 53.3 to Labor
By last-election preferences, Labor won all 93 polls this year

The polling year has just about come to an end so it's time for the annual roundup.  Should any further national polls appear I will edit in any necessary changes.

Since the last roundup things have improved slightly for the Turnbull federal government.  Following a brace of 55-ish results to Labor around mid-November, we've had two 53s from Newspoll, a run of 54-54-55-54-53 from Essential, 53s from ReachTEL four weeks back and Ipsos two weeks back (but the ReachTEL 53 came out at 54.7 by last-election preferences), and results from YouGov that came out to 53.1 and 54 by last-election preferences from YouGov.  (As noted further below, YouGov's 2PPs are wacky, so let's ignore them.)  The two 53s from Newspoll and today's 53 from Essential all looked like they were probably rounded down, and so my aggregate now sits at 53.4 to Labor.  Here's the (slightly) smoothed tracking graph:

Poll Roundup: Newspoll Moves! It Is Alive! (includes same-sex marriage polling)

2PP: 53.5 to Labor (+0.3 since last week)
Labor would win an election "held now" with a large majority

Time for another roundup of the state of play in federal polling.  This week's exciting development was that Newspoll, after a record six consecutive 2PPs of 53-47 to Labor, finally moved by a whole point to 54-46!  I am especially excited by this because had this week's result been another 53-47, I was going to lead off with a mock Death Certificate, and now I do not have to.

This briefly took my aggregate to an equal term high 53.8 to ALP (I tweeted this as 53.9 but later found a very small error) but then Essential moved back a point the other way after two 54s, and the primaries in YouGov didn't do a lot, so I currently have it at 53.5 to ALP. That was the Coalition's winning lead in the 2013 election, and also just shy of what Labor had when Tony Abbott was removed.  

The strange 2PP results of YouGov continue to baffle - this week it has the Coalition with a 51-49 lead off primaries that would normally imply something like 53.1% to Labor.  I discussed this issue last time, and the average difference between YouGov's 2PPs and the last-election 2PPs for their primaries is now running at a massive 2.9 points.  As noted last time, it's possible that the current last-election 2PPs are overstating Labor's lead, especially because of One Nation issues, but it's highly unlikely that they're doing so by three points.  Much more detail on the YouGov mystery from William Bowe here.

Poll Roundup: Behind Longer Than Howard

2PP Aggregate: 53.1 to ALP (-0.3 in a week) 
Labor would comfortably win election held "right now"

Time for another federal polling roundup, with three polls out this week.  This week Morgan (which leans to Labor) moved from 54.5% 2PP in Labor's favour by last-election preferences to 53.5, Newspoll stayed at 54 and Essential curiously moved to 51.

This was the first time Essential has had a reading other than 52 or 53 since a cluster of 54s in January through March.  It's the first time it's made it down to 51 in one year and two weeks.  The reason is that last week's half of the sample was very poor for Labor, most likely as a result of random sample noise.  As a result of this, it's possible my aggregate is behind a few tenths of a point unkind to Labor at the moment; the picture should be clearer after next week's data.

After considering the primary votes and house effects I aggregated the Morgan at 52.7 to Labor, the Newspoll at 54.3 and Essential at 51.1.  With two polls saying things are getting better for the Coalition versus one influential one saying they are getting slightly worse, the net impact of all this is a 0.3 point recovery for the government, but one that I would not read anything into yet.  Here's the smoothed tracking graph:

Poll Roundup: The End Of Newspoll (As We Know It)

2PP Aggregate: 52.3 to ALP (-0.6 since last week, closest for nearly half a year)
Labor would win election held "right now" with small to moderate majority

There is major news in Australian opinion polling this week with the announcement that the joint venture company that owns Newspoll is to be wound up.  The joint venture's shareholders, News Corp and Millward Brown, are pulling the plug because the business is considered "unsustainable".

Newspoll will continue as a brand, but the surveys released under that brand will soon start being conducted by Galaxy.  This is a kind of full circle, since Galaxy's Managing Director David Briggs was General Manager of Newspoll from its inception in October 1985 until April 2004.

What we know so far is that Newspoll will continue to be released about as frequently as now, but how much the new version (which it is tempting to nickname either Galapoll or Newsaxy) will differ in survey design - if at all - is as yet unclear.  I very much hope it will continue asking the same regular questions with the same wording, for the purposes of historical comparison.  However, William Bowe in today's Crikey email has reported that the "telephone component" of the new offering will be conducted by robopolling, suggesting also that there will be a non-telephone component. [Edit: confirmed, online as per current Galaxy federal polling - see comments.] It looks like we are set for not just new management of the Newspoll brand but also fundamentally new methods, such that it should be treated as a new poll.

Poll Roundup: One Year Behind

2PP Poll Aggregate: 53.4 to ALP (+0.4 in a week)
ALP would easily win election "held now"
Coalition has trailed on smoothed aggregate for one year

Usually this would be an "off week" for the poll roundup series as it is not a Newspoll week, but the presence of Ipsos and Galaxy justifies squeezing in an article amid all the postcount chaos going down in Prahran and Fisher.  Another reason for putting something up now is that this week the Abbott federal government celebrates an unwanted anniversary.  It is one year since it lost the 2PP polling lead to the Labor opposition. 

Aggregates have now and then fleetingly shown the government back in front or nearly so.  My own showed it leading narrowly (50.3%) for a single week in mid-February, and Bludger Track has produced a weekly reading of exactly 50:50 three times (mid-Feb, early April, early October).  But when any kind of smoothing is applied to weekly figures to tone down the effects of the odd stray inaccurate poll, these blips have disappeared.  Both the smoothed version of Bludger Track and my own more primitive smoothed version now show the Coalition to have been behind for one year.

Newspoll Upfront Exclusion Rates Since 2002

Advance Summary

1.  Some observers think that the proportion of voters who are indicated by Newspoll as "uncommitted" or "refused" gives Labor a much greater chance in the upcoming federal election, because the Government may attract a late swing from undecided voters.

2. The view that there is generally a late swing to an incumbent Government is false.

3. The view that there is usually a late swing to the party that is trailing is true, but it is not clear whether this is because there is a genuine "narrowing" effect, or whether this is because the Coalition tends to outperform its polling and the Coalition has often been the trailing party.

4. It is possible (and logical) that there is a link between increases in the Newspoll exclusion rate and poor polling for Labor, suggesting that when the party is performing poorly more of its voters become "uncommitted".  However, the evidence on this is inconclusive.

5. While it is plausible that undecided voters will move back to the Government and improve its result by, say, two points, this is also something that may not happen at all.

6. The issue of uncommitted and refused rates is only relevant to the margin of an overwhelmingly likely Coalition win (assuming no Labor leadership change).  There is nothing to suggest it is capable of turning the election.
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How Common Is A Five-Point Swing In Under Four Months?

Advance Summary

1. The Gillard government now probably needs a swing back in public opinion of around 5% in three and a half months to win the federal election. [Update:  After Monday's polls, it's even more than that.]

2. A recent article by Simon Jackman draws attention to swings of this magnitude, from one election to the next, being rare events that mainly (not exclusively!) accompany changes of power.

3. It is not correct to infer that swings of this size in a much shorter period are even less probable, because in fact 5-point swings within 16 weeks are commoner than 5-point swings between elections.

4. However, 5-point swings in shorter time periods typically result from temporary factors - leadership and event bounces, honeymoon effects, policy mistakes that are corrected, bad patches etc.  

5. Fast swings that have occurred in the leadup to elections have usually washed out of the system partly or entirely by election day.

6. The past history of quick 5-point swings in polling provides no sound basis for belief that even an extreme event such as the S11 attacks or leadership change would save the Government now.  (This does not mean it is impossible, just that there is no precedent.)

2001: The Final Frontier

Advance summary:

1.  Combined results of all current polling suggest that the Gillard Labor government is now in a worse position than any past winning government - in terms of the amount by which it trails for the time remaining to the election - except for Howard's in 2001.

2.  If Labor does not have a 2PP position better than 46% by late March, it will fall behind Howard's 2001 recovery curve.

3.  It is also possible that very bad polling in the next few weeks would cause Labor to reach a position worse than that Howard recovered from in 2001.

4.  Being in a position from which recovery is without precedent or has few precedents does not mean a party cannot win an election.  However, it suggests they are unlikely to do so.

5.  This article also includes subjective waffle about Labor's current leadership and direction problems and the difficulty finding a clear and competitive way out of the mess the government has got itself into.

Update (25 Feb): It is now debatable whether even Howard's 2001 recovery is a valid precedent for recovery from the Gillard Government's current situation.

Rogues, Recoveries and Irrelevant Portents

Admin note for Tas readers especially: this month I am running Not-A-Poll: Best Tasmanian Premier of the last 30 years.  Please vote (on right) if you have an opinion!  Readers may be surprised to see the Premier of one of Tasmania's least popular governments ever (ie the current one) challenging for the lead, as well as the big lead for the Labor premiers over the Liberal ones, but there are actually quite a few reasons why this might occur.  When the not-a-poll is finished I'll post some comments about the exercise and what it means. Of course, the results are not representative of the general population - and that's even assuming nobody stacks the thing!

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Advance Summary

1. Following a very turbulent week in federal politics, this week's polls on average show a small move to the Coalition.

2. The Newspoll showing a result of 56:44 to the Coalition is unrepresentative and probably exceeds the real figure by at least 2 points.

3. The Newspoll reading is probably not, however, a "rogue poll".

4. Over-calling of supposed "rogue polls" is a very common problem in the online poll-watching community.  This article provides many cautionary notes about use of the term "rogue" to describe a poll result.

5. The Government's polling position is now worse than that of the Keating Government in 1992-3 was at the equivalent or any later stage.

6. There are possibly still as many as six cases of governments recovering from worse polling positions than Labor's current position (with the time to go until the election factored in), however in three of those cases the data are very limited and at least one of the others is probably an invalid comparison.

7. Claimed evidence that either the declaration of the election date well in advance, or the chosen election date itself, are bad portents for Labor is not valid.

8. This article concludes with some discussion of contradictory voter attitudes to the economy, which may be posing a major problem for Labor at the moment.  

Morgan And The Myth Of Excessive Bouncing /The 1993 Analogy

Note added later: This article refers to a Morgan polling method that is no longer in use.

Advance Summary:

1. Face-to-face polls conducted by Roy Morgan Research are no more volatile than Newspoll.

2. In the case of both Morgan Face-to-Face polls and Newspoll, the level of bouncing from poll to poll is unsurprising, unsuspicious, and mostly explained by random variation.

3. Morgan Face-to-Face polls do however favour Labor, and this is especially true of their figures which allocate preferences according to results of the last election.  Morgan phone polls do not seem to favour one side or the other very much.

4. The current polling position and history of the Gillard Government is similar to that of both Keating governments.  Both became competitive about a year from the election, but continued to trail modestly for several months.

5. The first Keating government took the lead suddenly four and a half months from the election, while the second Keating government never managed to close down the Opposition's modest lead.

6. Recent articles by Peter Brent (Mumble) have repeatedly argued that a Gillard vs Abbott contest results in a certain or near-certain win for Abbott.

7. But an August 2012 article by the same writer sets criteria according to which the Keating polling situation was competitive throughout 1992, and then unfavourably compares Gillard's position then.

8. If the same criteria are applied, Labor under Gillard is competitive now.

Is the Silly Season Real?

(Admin note to readers: jumpbreaks poll closed - thanks to those who voted - outcome at bottom of post)

 Advance Summary

1. The view that a swing to the Coalition in the final Newspoll of 2012 was due to a general tendency for voters to "switch off" politics as Christmas approaches is disproven by historic evidence.

2. Comparisons between the December 2012 and December 2011 Newspolls on account of them having the same two-party preferred vote are simplistic and misleading because they fail to take into account surrounding trend data.

3. Although there has been a now clear and significant move to a substantial Coalition lead since early November, Labor's polling position in mid-December 2012 is not as bad as at the same time in 2011.

4. Leads similar to the Coalition's current lead have been held by many losing Oppositions five or six months prior to elections.

5. Whatever intuitive or subjective views different commentators hold, informed by data or otherwise, there is no known valid scientific basis for predicting the result of the next federal election at this stage, nor even for declaring a very strong favourite.  This applies no matter who the leaders are.

As Gillard recovered, so can Abbott?

Advance summary:

1. The view has been advanced that since Julia Gillard has become much less unpopular, then so can Tony Abbott.

2. This view does not automatically follow, because Gillard and Abbott occupy different positions and became unpopular for mostly different reasons.

3. The record since the late 1960s shows that the average recovery in net satisfaction for both Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders between their worst rating and the next election is about 20 points.

4. However, very unpopular Opposition Leaders are usually removed, and those who make it to elections have so far lost them even if they had ceased to be unpopular by election time.

5. There is one case of an Opposition Leader recovering from a rating worse than Abbott's to a positive net rating within two months, but without winning the election.  (Andrew Peacock, 1984)

6. However, the general historical trend is against the likelihood of Tony Abbott recovering to a positive or even near-zero rating before the next election.