So far Labor's overall poll support has been relatively good under Kevin Rudd. The real problem has been in the marginal seats, where the Coalition has been much stronger. But now Labor's national vote is falling too, as the Rudd's sugar hit fades fast: VOTER support for Kevin Rudd has sunk to its lowest level on record, leaving Labor headed for a large election loss with Tony Abbott now virtually equal as preferred prime minister... Labor's primary vote, at 34 per cent, is now at its lowest level since Mr Rudd removed Julia Gillard as prime minister and the Coalition's primary vote of 47 per cent is at its highest during the same time. Primary support for the Greens dropped from 11 per cent to 9 per cent... On a two-party-preferred basis, based on preference flows at the 2010 election, Labor's support has dropped two percentage points, to 46 per cent, and the Coalition's support has risen to 54 per cent. And I think it could get even worse for Labor over the next three weeks. Nothing in Rudd's campaign suggests he has any petrol left. He has no more fresh policies, he has outstayed his welcome, his energy is down and Abbott has turned Labor's fear campaign against it, characterising it correctly and successfully as desperation. This could become a complete disaster. Rudd is a man whose success has been built on portraying him as sunny, confident and completely on top of all the details. But now the screen has been pulled to reveal the real Wizard of Aus - frazzled, uncertain and rabbiting on about what he barely knows what while standing on a smoking ruin. My tip: Abbott to win a majority of 30. That means Rudd's return would have saved Labor maybe a dozen seats, making it worth the gamble - just. But two things: Rudd was shockingly underprepared for a return he plotted for over three years. Even I've been surprised and his supporters must be shocked. Where are the policies? Where is this "new" Rudd they were promised? Second, Rudd has - as I warned three weeks ago - actually made it harder for Labor to win the election after this one. He's trashed any moral standing the party still had over boat people and climate change in particular by proposing a harsh (if unworkable) PNG solution and promising (albeit falsely) to "terminate" the carbon tax. And a caveat: three weeks of campaigning could of course make my prediction look too hasty. But it's more likely that Labor will perform worse than there is that it will perform better. It will get more desperate, and probably more divided. Rudd does not seem healthy and is campaigning particularly badly. Many voters now still backing Labor had under Julia Gillard decided to vote Liberal - and may be easy to shift back to their earlier decision. Former Labor speechwriter Troy Bramston and his Labor briefers seem to me too hopeful: Labor's polling shows it slipped behind to 47-53 per cent on a national two-party-preferred basis last week but is now lifting again. Having recalibrated its national campaign and confident that its local campaigns are as strong as they can be, Labor insiders know that in the end it is up to Rudd to lift the party back into a competitive position. Bramston and Labor see hope in Labor striking preference deals with the crazier parties - ones with policies to drive the country broke: In what could prove to be a decisive move in several Queensland marginal seats, Labor will give its second preferences to Bob Katter's Australia Party but preference the Greens in all other states and in the two territories. In return, KAP will preference Labor in key seats it needs to win government. And remember Rudd claiming he had "zero tolerance for corruption"? Here's another Labor deal, showing the party prefers a Craig Thomson (who claims he's innocent of all charges of misusing union members" money) to four cleanskins, including the Liberal: THE ALP will put Craig Thomson ahead of four candidates including the Liberal on its how-to-vote card for the NSW seat of Dobell, eschewing the opportunity seized by the Coalition to take a moral stand and preference the scandal-plagued independent MP behind the major parties... The Australian can reveal that the Liberals, in an electorally risky move, will preference the Labor candidate for Dobell, Emma McBride, ahead of Mr Thomson on the Liberal how-to-vote card. Labor has completely lost its moral bearings. Rudd once insisted "this sort of reckless spending must stop." Two weeks ago Rudd promised "an end to wall-to-wall negativity." Now Labor is pinning its hopes on a massive negative scare campaign to demonise Abbott and any attempt to restrain Labor's out-of-control spending: Aired from Sunday night, the high rotation TV ad has the slogan "If he wins, you lose" set against a close-up picture of the Opposition Leader in suit and blue tie. The ads, which claim that an Abbott government would cut 12,000 jobs, feature the lights going out on families and builds on the theme of "cuts, cuts, cuts" being pushed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in his campaigning across the country last week... A senior Labor source said the message from the party's first round of ads about cuts had started to gain traction... We've been picking up a point a night. By the middle of the week we think the complexion of this election will be different, much closer," an ALP source said. This from the party which on the eve of the election admitted the Budget had blown out by $33 billion, the economy was slowing and another 80,000 Australians would lose their jobs over the next year. And note the lies - like Abbott allegedly planning to cut "billions" from schools. Still, for a negative and deceitful ad, it's reasonably effective.