Labor reckons it has a good shot at a bunch of Liberal seats. But it also has an interest in persuading us that it’s well ahead. |OPINION
Someone is going to panic. This campaign is 38 days long. By the time Easter came around eight had gone. Now we’re in public holiday limbo. By next Monday, when normal service resumes, just 20 days will remain.
You can tell this from the seats Bill Shorten has visited so far. These decisions are often read as indications of how confident a side is feeling – if the leader visits a seat it must mean they think it’s winnable. But like everything else in politics, campaigning has ascended to a high level of self-awareness. The decisions early on tell you less about the seats the parties think they might win as about the seats the parties want the media to think they might win.
If, at that point, internal polling hasn’t shifted, then Morrison will panic, because it will suggest not just that he is behind, but that votes are stuck – and that nothing he has done has made a difference. The biggest of bangs will be needed to shatter the status quo.
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