Leadership Polling – a comprehensive rundown
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Yesterday both Galaxy and Newspoll released polling on leadership ratings of a Rudd/Gillard head-to-head, while Morgan asked the same with a phone poll late last week. Looking at the three questions, Galaxy asked:
Which of the two Labor politicians, Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard, do you believe would be the best choice to be leader of the Labor Party?
Newspoll asked:
Thinking now of the leadership of the federal parliamentary Labor Party, which one of the following do you think would be the best candidate to lead the Labor Party?
While Morgan asked:
Thinking of Mr. Rudd and Ms. Gillard. In your opinion, who would make the better Prime Minister — Mr. Rudd or Ms. Gillard?
All three questions produced similar results:
While that’s marginally interesting and all, it doesn’t really provide us with any temporal context. Fortuitously, Morgan covered this leadership issue further with it’s semi-regular phone poll that not only asks this head to head question, but asks additional questions which look deeper into leadership perceptions by providing more response options, covering not only the Labor party, but the Liberal Party as well.
As Morgan runs this poll a few times a year, it gives us a longer term perspective on how leadership perceptions are changing over time.
First up, the headline figures for each Party since December 2008. I’ve knocked out a few of the smaller guppies that generate small single figure responses (like Jenny Macklin for Labor and Christopher Pyne for the Libs) and threw them in with the “Others/Can’t say” category – but you can see the full list over here if you’re particularly tragic.
The big ‘story’ coming out of these polls has been how Gillard has closed in on Rudd, with there being only an 8 point separation between the two now on the leadership question. We can see the convergence with a quick chart (click to expand):
However, if we look closer and split the numbers into voting intention cross-tabs, it’s not quite what it seems.
What is happening underneath the headline figures is that Labor voters have shown only a slight decline in their support for Rudd while Gillard had a slight jump among Labor voters in December and has kept that approximate level of support since.
Where the majority of the Rudd/Gillard convergence has come from is with Liberal Party voters. As the Liberal Party vote has increased over the last few months, the proportion of Liberal Party voters making up the headline figures has increased pretty substantially. As we can see, it has been Liberal Party voters moving away from Rudd and slightly towards Gillard that has driven the majority of the change in those headline figures.
If we look at how the Rudd/Gillard “Better Leader” numbers have changed since the October 2009 ALP polling peak, it tells us the bulk of the story:
Liberal voters have deserted Rudd and moved to Gillard at over twice the rate of ALP voters during the period – which, when combined with their increased weight in the headline numbers, has driven most of the change in those headline numbers.
The big question is how much of that change on the part of Liberal voters is just the rusted ons getting cranky (which we’ve seen occurring in nearly every other poll result – the polarisation of issues along partisan voting lines) and how much is caused by soft Liberal voters taking that view?
Moving now to the Liberal Party leader results and running a chart on the headline figures (from the first set of Morgan tables at the top of the post), we get (click to expand):
Here we’re seeing a three way convergence at the headline level, with only 2 points separating the three politicians! Again, it becomes more interesting when we break in down by voting intention cross-tabs:
Charting these buggers we get (click to expand):
It’s interesting that Turnbull is almost the perfect opposite of Abbott in terms of supporter bases, while Hockey wedges right in the middle of the two. More interesting however is the way Abbott’s support takes a massive jump in December (the Morgan poll in December 2009 was taken the few days following his ascension). It suggests that a substantial chunk of support for a given party leader simply derives from the fact that they happen to be the leader. Abbott’s ratings were low before his ascension, yet rocketed up to 42 immediately on taking the leadership mantle.
It’s worth mentioning that we’d expect to see that same leadership effect for any party.
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Kevin Rudd does not have a ‘constituent’ in the Labor Party, and his leadership style did not make many friends. He became the leader because he was viewed as the most electable candidate, and the right wing in the ALP couldn’t stand Gillard being the leader. Whether she will become the next ALP leader will depend on the seat distribution between the Right and the Left. I predict Australia will have our first female PM before the year is out.
The whole question is whether your leader should appeal to the base or to the other side?
Interesting to note that the Laborites have gone off Joe Hockey recently.
Rudd is far more popular than either Howard or Keating were during their first terms
http://politicalowl.blogspot.com/2010/05/price-of-early-popularity.html
The increasing support for Swan amongst Liberal voters is interesting as well. Could it be that the more they see of him, the more respect they have for him and his ability as Treasurer?
ronin8317
i predict you will be eating your hat.
Now that the Mad monk has confirmed he comes in “Phoney Tony” and “Gospel Tony” colours, things should improve a bit. And Who knows what other wacky things he’ll say between now and the election date (and whether anyone can tell if he’s lying as “Gospel Tony” or telling the truth as “Phoney Tony” or vice-versa, oh God I have a Head-Ache!) …
As we can see, it has been Liberal Party voters moving away from Rudd and slightly towards Gillard that has driven the majority of the change in those headline figures.
There’s an alternate way to read the change, though: The former Rudd-supporting Labor Party voters who moved from Rudd to Gillard have also changed their expressed voting intention from Labor to Liberal.
Since cohorts weren’t tracked, you can’t say with certainty which of these is the case. It’s a pity that none of the pollsters seem to ever re-poll the same groups, which would allow cohort tracking – you would think Essential would be able to do so, with their online panel?
ronin8317. could be, and about time I reckon.
what is significant is that to my great surprise…Turnbul leads Abbott who runs level with Hockey in this poll….
The various polls show little favour for Abbot and a few more silly comments will not help that support to grow…
As people see the global problems faced by so many countries they will see what a great deal Rudd has delivered.on the economy ..and in the coming weeks have no doubt that the harsh budget to come in the UK will produce dramatic signs of public anger on the streets of UK cities…something like Athens on the streets of London itself. perhaps…
A major union leader has warned the new Tory-dominated government that they will face fierce opposition to what is being called: ‘fiscal fascism “..interesting polls this week show that the LibDems have lost up to 20% of support …from those who didn’t vote for them to put the a Tories into power ! …..wait and see !!!!
You realise this a Glenn Milne/Andrew Bolt talking point, right? Why do I get the feeling you would be happy repeating whatever meme those tools put out about Rudd, regardless of whether he was supposed to be hated by the ALP, or if he was instead supposedly surrounded by Keating-esque cronies.
And I’m so sorry for your failing eyesight that doesn’t allow you to see Possum’s chart above where Rudd still enjoys the support of 60% of Labor voters as preferred leader. Though no doubt you can don your Oz political Kremlinologist cap again and tell us why that figure has no impact whatsoever on the opinions of the non-pragmatic, doctrinaire anti-psephologists who somehow actually run the ALP caucus, or something.
I predict Rudd will be starting his second, smaller political honeymoon at the end of this year after he leads the ALP to victory at the federal election. Gillard’s ascension will depend on how far into 2011 or 2012 that era of good feelings lasts, and when Rudd decides he wants to retire.
John Howard’s biggest mistake was Work Choice, since it threaten to wipe out the union movement once and for all. With their very survival at stake, the warring factions of the ALP banded together and ‘rolled’ Kim Beazley in favour of someone who can win. Kevin Rudd was picked due to his high media profile and because he’s from Queensland. Julia Gillard had more support than Kevin Rudd, yet she backed Rudd because the Right would never stand for it. After the election, Rudd had the freedom to pick his cabinet, and ‘union heavies’ like Greg Combet didn’t get any roles, while lightweights like Peter Garrett gets a spot. That would not have won many friends. The high popularity was Rudd’s greatest asset against infighting and white-ants, and now it’s gone.
The re-election chance of MPs in marginal seats are depends on the performance on the PM. With the opinion poll dropping to 50|50 in a few short month, most of them are running around like a headless chook wondering how things went from ‘total trashing of the Coalition’ to ‘losing the election’ so fast. Fairly or unfairly, they will blame it on Rudd. This provides a fertile background for future rebellion.
Kevin Rudd’s popularity and consumer confidence moves together, the stimulus money running out and rising interest rate is the biggest factor in the drop in ALP support. An election budget with a new tax and no ‘bribes’ to the middle class is the most courageous act in politics in the past 10 years. It remains to be seen whether the Australian population appreciates being treated like responsible adults, or would they prefer the ‘Phony Tony’ brand of ‘Magic Pudding’ solutions. The one truism of politics is ‘no good deeds goes unpunished’. By doing the ‘right thing’, Kevin Rudd has doomed himself.
Not surprised by Julia Gillard is closing in as preferred PM. She does have the advantage of speaking plainly and cutting through. Clearly Australian’s see Rudd as he is -a hypocritical academic who talks in the stratosphere and expects the average Australian to understand his message.
For those of you who who were luck enough to witness his unprofessional “geeing up” of the Australian Soccer Team this week showed on the ABC National TV this morning,would have experienced this glib hollow man of Australian Politics in action. He couldn’t even be serious in his address.
However make no mistake Rudd is the better of the the 2 evils-Gillard as PM would be a dangerous leader to Australia indeed!
DJ – Tony Abbott would be far more dangerous if he were to become PM (not to mention that as a consequence you end up with Hockey as treasurer, and a bunch of Howard era remnants being recycled into the bargain).
Julia Gillard is the best option we have.
I’d love to see Bob Brown as PM – but the 80% of rusted on tweedle supporters are too thick to break away from their entrenched tribalism.
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