Victorian election was lukewarm all round

Albeit by a small margin, and again with a large number of uncommitted voters.

So why did Napthine lose if he was the preferred premier, and electors were unenthusiastic about the parties?

Let's deal with some of the reasons advanced by commentators.

Jeff Kennett was quick to direct friendly fire at Abbott, and less friendly fire came from Chris Kenny in the SMH, Laurie Oakes, and others. The Labor Party implicitly appears to have agreed running election advertisements where the faces of Napthine and Abbott merged to become one.

But there is little evidence from our respondents that Abbott was a major reason. Only two people (out of 175) nominated him as the reason for voting against the state government.

Much more significant were alleged cuts to education and health, as well as cuts to TAFE. Other factors cited were lack of transparency around the East-West Link and a lack of investment in public transport, damage done to the environment, discomfit over the rate of development, privatisation and unemployment.

It's probable that Abbott played a part in negative perceptions on some of these issues as the problems at a federal level have damaged the Liberal brand and made it easier to paint it as the party that hates the poor.

For example, there was little factual justification for blaming the state government for cuts to health or education. While they had slowed the growth in spending in these areas to roughly the rate of inflation they had not been cut.

However, at a federal level the refusal of Abbott to extend Gonski and the previous Labor government's health funding arrangements, has been painted by Labor as broken promises and cuts in funding to education and health. So this may well have contributed to a belief amongst electors that the state Liberals had cut these services too.

But if he is taking some blame, it doesn't appear to be a particularly heavy load as demonstrated by these two tables from Newspoll's Victorian polling.

Source: http://polling.newspoll.com.au.tmp.anchor.net.au/image_uploads/130807%20VIC%20Voting%20Intention%20&%20Leaders%20Ratings%20Jul%20-%20Aug.pdf