Steve Lewis in today’s Australia has another bubble and squeak snippet from the December Newspoll. Today Lewis revealed Newspoll asked a question that is normally the bailiwick of Morgan: Who do you think will win the next election?
Newspoll’s finding — 40 per cent thought Labor would win — reflected the post Rudd polls from Morgan on the same question.
However Newspoll’s finding that 42 per cent thought the Coalition would win was lower than Morgan, Morgan predicted 46 per cent.
More interesting was the break down by voter preference.
Labor voters are more optimistic of winning office than they were in the lead-up to the 2004 poll, with 39 per cent believing Mr Rudd can succeed after being leader for one month since replacing Kim Beazley.
A little more than 60 per cent of Labor supporters believe Mr Rudd can defeat the Prime Minister, while 67 per cent of Coalition backers expect Mr Howard to win a fifth term…
Under Mark Latham, voters were less optimistic about Labor’s chances in the lead-up to the 2004 poll. The Opposition’s best result was 30 per cent expectation of a win, a month out from the election.
In the end, voters turned on Mr Latham, with Labor recording its lowest primary vote in 70 years.
