Polling update with a twist of West Wing

Today's Fairfax-Ipsos poll was another shocker for the Coalition: 46-54 in Labor's favour. It was a one point decline for the Coalition on the previous Ipsos poll. If preferences were allocated by how people said they would allocate them, the result would have been even worse for the Coalition: 44-56.

As a West Wing tragic, it reminded of the following scene from series 7, in which the latest tracking poll is provided to the Santos team.

Ned walks up and hands them a sheet of paper.

NED
We just got the new tracking numbers. Nine and holding.

Josh and Lou both grunt at the number.

NED
Couple weeks ago you were doing cartwheels about being only nine down.

JOSH
Well, that was a couple weeks ago.

NED
With the margin of error it could really be just six.

LOU
When the polls spit out the same numbers, day in and day out, it's time to stop talking margins of error.

JOSH
Nine points is nine points.

NED
That's what I thought then, but you were all so happy.

LOU
So, basically, you've been wrong about this twice now. 

We have had a string of polls now in which the Coalition is behind six or eight - even nine points. Not surprisingly, this is showing up in the aggregated polling, which has the Coalition on 46.5 - seven points down.

The recent decline in the Coalition's polling fortunes is evident in all of my aggregation models.

In terms of the primary vote polling, the Coalition is declining, Labor is improving (off a recent slump), the Greens are riding high (midst volatile and inconsistent polling), and those intending to vote for others is just off its low point.

Also of note, the attitudinals appear to be turning for the Leader of the Opposition.