OMG! Abbott has gone up a bit in polling! Don't panic!

Um, firstly it's a really good idea to ignore the main stream media hype about it all. Polling is a delicate science and variations happen all the time. One or two polls does not a recovery make. You always have to look at the big picture.

So after reading ninemsn's screaming about Abbott's huge recovery, complete with a picture of a beaming Abbott, I thought it better to get the real picture from professional pollsters and not the Murdoch journalists hyperventilating about the return of their glorious leader. In this case the Poll Bludger.

Turns out the Fairfax-Ipsos polls have a lean to the Lieberals compared to other pollsters. There is also the thing that when preferences are allocated according to the respondents to the polling, rather than how they were allocated according to the last election, the results are a full two point gap difference in favour of Labor. Polling also has a margin of error of a couple of percent either way.

Not quite the shining poll result screamed by the media:

The year’s second Ipsos poll for the Fairfax papers seems to confirm two things: the government’s poll recovery from the depths of the leadership spill, and the pollster’s relative lean to the Coalition. The poll records a straight four-point exchange on the primary vote, with Labor down to 36% and the Coalition up to 42%, and the Greens up one to 12%. This gives Labor a lead of just 51-49 based on 2013 election preferences. There will presumably be another respondent-allocated result to come, and if past form is any guide it will have Labor further ahead (UPDATE: It does, though only to the extent of 52-48.) more

Peter Hartcher also wades in on the "positive" poll, saying it confirms he's a dead man walking:

But look a little further. Seventy-two per cent of voters say that Abbott does not have the confidence of his own party. 

In other words, the people believe that Abbott lacks the basic qualification to remain leader. 

"They have read the writing on the wall for Mr Abbott," says the Fairfax pollster, Ipsos' Jess Elgood. This is consistent with the odds in the betting markets. 

Sportingbet says Abbott has a 75 per cent chance of being removed from the leadership before the next election. 

"Our punters are convinced that it is only a matter of time before Mr Turnbull has the nation's top job," according to Sportingbet's Andrew Brown. 

Elgood has a similar reading of her poll data: "It possibly indicates that the voters have already moved on from Mr Abbott. 

"But they have not despaired of the Liberal Party," anticipating a change of leader. 

This is the central point. After the Liberal Party spill motion, the people see Abbott as being on the way out. 

Public support continues to build for the two leading candidates to replace him. more   

In other words, voters have decided Abbott is gone for all money and therefore feeling a bit better about voting Lieberal because of that.