On Monday, we learned about John Howard and the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg. Today, it’s the relief of Mafeking?

Coalition support is up, according to the latest face to face polling from Roy Morgan Research, but there won’t be much in the way of celebrations. They’ve only regained some lost ground. The Coalition camp is still besieged.

The Government’s primary vote is up 2.5 points to 38%, while Labor’s is down four to 49.5%. With preferences distributed as they were at the 2004 Federal election, the two party preferred vote splits firmly Labor’s way 57.5% to 42.5%. Support for the Greens is 6% (up 0.5%), Family First 2% (up 0.5%), Australian Democrats 1% (down 0.5%), One Nation 0.5% (unchanged) and other parties and independents 3% (up 1%).

An unchanged number of electors — 61% — believe the ALP will win the next Federal election, while 27.5% (up 0.5%) think the Coalition will be returned and 11.5% (down 0.5%) can’t say. A majority of electors (53%, up 3.5%) think Australia is heading in the “right direction”, while 28.5% (down 6%) think Australia is heading in the “wrong direction” — 18.5% (up 2.5%) are undecided.

According to Morgan, 21.5% (unchanged) of all electors say Australia is “heading in the right direction” yet say they would vote Labor if an election were held today. This is equal to the highest result since the Morgan Poll began measuring voting strength in late May. Morgan considers these electors to be “Soft ALP voters” and believe they are the key to the Federal election.

Sol Lebovic was on ABC Radio in Adelaide yesterday discussing the soft vote.

“The kind of levels we are getting nationally at the moment are more than double what we have had as a record for Labor,” he said.

“If the polling holds up, and that’s a very big ‘if’, to election day this would be a record-setting election.

“The polling itself is giving us different indications – on the one hand we have Labor so far ahead at record levels, we have support for Kevin Rudd, but then we go to another question like who is more capable of handling the economy.

“John Howard continues to have a very comfortable margin over that and Labor is struggling to catch up to the Coalition in terms of economic management and that would be unprecedented for a party to win government without at least being competitive in the economic management area.”

Lebovic agreed with the proposition:

Kevin Rudd’s Labor has to be more popular than Bob Hawke’s in 1983 and it has to be smarter than Kim Beazley’s in 1998.

This latest face-to-face Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention was conducted on the weekend of October 6/7 2007, with an Australia wide cross-section of 1,081 electors.

Meanwhile, Peter Brent from Mumble Elections writes:

The latest poll-mix, containing five surveys from the last fortnight, has Labor ahead 57 to 43 on a two party preferred basis (more on the methodology here).

Since May, support for the Coalition has edged up a little before dipping again over the last several fortnights.

When the government announced its great big Northern Territory intervention in June, many people expected it to be followed by boost in the polls. It wasn’t – if anything the opposite happened.

Back then, pollster Galaxy asked electors for the News Limited tabloids whether they thought it was a stunt, while Newspoll in The Australian asked if people felt it was a good idea. Both got large majorities in the affirmative.

A similar pair of questions on last night’s Prime Ministerial announcement would be most illuminating.