Advantage but no honeymoon

What was fatal to his career were the wrinkles in the normal distribution of voting intentions in marginal electorates where elections are generally won.

Parties can win high levels of support in already safe seats while swinging voters are moving away in marginal ones.

There are two directions of defection from Labor at the moment: one of the middle-class to the Greens and the other of blue-collar conservatives to independents or the Liberals.

The blue-collar conservatives have determined elections for at least the past 14 years, and they will do so again this year.

Much of the movement to the Greens will come back to Labor through preferences, because these voters will never vote for the Coalition.

Many working-class conservatives have no such qualms.

The story for Gillard with swingers is quite different from the total sample.

Here both she and Abbott enjoy similar levels of support, with neither getting more than 50 per cent in any category.

For Gillard, 37 per cent approve and 39 per cent disapprove.

For Abbott it is 41 per cent and 40 per cent.

And 38 per cent want Gillard as prime minister, 40 per cent Abbott, and 22 per cent aren't sure.

One of the reasons for these results is that many swinging voters aren't sure who Gillard is. They prefer her to Rudd, but only because she isn't him.