Scott Morrison (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

This is supposed to be Scott Morrison’s time to shine. The man who won the unwinnable election is back in his natural habitat on the campaign trail. Every day, the prime minister seems to relish leading a bus of disoriented reporters and camera people to multiple carefully stage-managed photo opportunities while unencumbered by the distraction of governing. 

Last election, he made a miracle happen. Morrison, in signing up for a monster six-week campaign, bet on his ability to make it happen again: “I’m going to lead, and I’m asking you once again to follow me to election victory,” he promised the party room in February.

Except, it’s not happening. If you go by any of the major polls, Scott Morrison and the Coalition are stuck well behind Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party. If anything, they’ve lost a tiny bit of ground. Other than a dip and then a return in approval for Albanese after the first week’s gaffe — a weakness that Morrison pounced on and prosecuted — national polls show that things remain remarkably consistent at a time when polls usually tighten. 

This matches the campaign we’ve seen so far. Weeks ago, we wrote that Morrison and the Coalition were running a disaster reelection campaign. While some of the more odious elements, like Katherine Deves, faded from the fore, big events like the Solomon Islands-China pact and rising inflation and rates have blunted the government’s traditional strengths. Instead, we’re seeing the myth of Scott Morrison, political genius and expert campaigner, evaporate in real time. 

In 2019, Morrison snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. He took a Coalition in shambles, with exposed divisions and a controversy-riddled frontbench, and hid it all behind an inflated caricature of himself: Scott Morrison, Sharks supporter, curry cooker, the everyman PM. He was able to claw back some approval in the lead-up to the election. In the opposite corner, his opponent Bill Shorten was unpopular and promoted big, divisive policies that fed into potent attacks against him. Morrison’s win was so unexpected that it earned him a reputation as a political genius.

Since then, Morrison has been largely an unpopular leader barring one major event. Soon after the bump that comes with winning an election, Morrison’s approval sank over his management of the 2019-2020 bushfires and lack of a legislative agenda to speak of. 

Then came COVID-19. The pandemic was a disaster that provided Morrison with a political gift. It was something for the government to do. With Morrison at the helm, Australia dealt with COVID-19 better than most other nations in the world. In turn, his popularity immediately spiked larger than any other nation’s leader. According to Morning Consult, which polls the approval of dozens of world leaders, his net approval went from -27 at the start of March 2020 to +30 at the start of May. Since then, however, his popularity has been in free fall to the point that he’s almost back where he was post-bushfire season. 

Today, Morrison is less popular than Malcolm Turnbull was when he scraped back during the 2016 election. He’s even less popular than Bill Shorten was when Morrison defeated him during the 2019 election. You have to go back to the 2013 election to see a leader win an election who was less popular than he is now — and that was Tony Abbott winning over even more unpopular incumbent Kevin Rudd. 

Even in the first weeks of the election campaign, when it was clear he was in a bad position, Morrison was spoken of as the Coalition’s greatest asset. After all, election polls are nice, but as the aphorism goes, the only poll that counts is election day. In political reporting, elections are a referendum on a million decisions but none more so than the prowess of a party’s leader. 

The press gallery’s begrudging respect for the way Morrison plays the media game also had a role in the optimism for his campaign. After all, how can you not admire an unlimited stamina for activities for the camera and his incredible shamelessness and discipline that lets him hammer a message home?

Perhaps this makes a good campaigner in the technical sense. But what about campaigning in a way that wins elections? Morrison has chosen to place himself at the centre of the Coalition’s reelection campaign, repeating his winning strategy in 2019. At time of writing, media monitoring company Streem has Morrison as the Coalition’s leading spokesperson by featuring in 63% of the coverage, with the next closest figures Josh Frydenberg (8%) and Barnaby Joyce (5%) far behind. The only problem is that Morrison is a lot more unpopular now and he’s competing against a more popular opponent. Meanwhile, the prime minister’s brand is so tainted he can’t even go and defend former Liberal strongholds.

The Coalition’s desperate attempt to neutralise this sentiment by saying “you don’t have to like him, but you need him” runs into the unfortunate reality that Morrison’s defining moments as prime minister are associated with shirking responsibility or bungling efforts. It’s telling that Morrison spruiks numbers but rarely points to a decision that he and his government made as proof of their credentials. 

It’s clear that Morrison and the government believed the myth, too. Cast your mind back to the end of 2021. Back then, there was talk of Morrison calling a snap election. Instead, the government chose to wait and hope the Christmas break would give them a chance to reset. This year has essentially been their five-month election campaign, with only a few days of Parliament and using the budget as a set piece.

Morrison and the Coalition sized up Albanese’s Labor Party and bet the house on being able to outmanoeuvre and out-campaign them. So far, they’ve failed. They’ve gone backwards. This is the part where it would be remiss of me to say “anything can happen in the lead-up to election day”, but even if the Coalition was to somehow scrape a victory, Morrison’s halo is gone. All he can do now is pray.