Let us start with what is known.
First, it is still more likely than not that the federal election campaign that is now under way will result in the election of a Coalition government on 7 September.
Kevin Rudd's second coming as prime minister has staved off the threat of electoral catastrophe that loomed under Julia Gillard, when the ALP faced the loss of almost half of the 72 seats it holds in the House of Representatives. That prospect has now receded, and even the gloomiest predictions for Labor — those derived from betting odds rather than opinion polls — now envisage the party winning up to 65 seats. But in a 150-seat chamber that still means a clear and comfortable victory for the Opposition.
This is not to say that it is impossible for Labor to cling to office. To do so, however, it will have to win seats, not merely retain those it now has, and the last time an Australian government successfully did this was in the extraordinary circumstances of World War II. If the Rudd Government is to emulate the Curtin Government's achievement, it will probably have to do so by picking up enough seats in Queensland to compensate for those it could lose in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW, and also deliver a majority.
That Labor can even consider fighting a campaign on that basis is a measure of the difference the leadership change has made to the party's confidence and its standing in the electorate: under Gillard, Labor was expected to lose all its Queensland seats except for Rudd's. Nonetheless, the electoral momentum remains with the Coalition.
So why does Rudd apparently think he can win against the odds? It is not only an ego-driven assessment, considerable though his self-regard is. The most important indicator of voters' intentions, the two-party-preferred vote, has wavered in recent polls between a 50-50 split and 52 per cent for the Coalition and 48 per cent for Labor. Rudd, however, is relying on the indicator that has consistently differentiated him from both Gillard and Abbott: preferred prime minister.
He was usually way ahead of Gillard on this poll question and is way ahead of Abbott now. In the latest Newspoll, 47 per cent of respondents preferred Rudd as prime minister, compared with 33 per who preferred Abbott. The margin varies from poll to poll — a fortnight ago 50 per cent preferred Rudd — but Abbott