This week’s Essential Research survey asked its repondents about the main reason for their voting intention. Unfortunately a lack of consistency between the questions asked undermines comparisons. Nevertheless there are some interesting differences:

* Liberals and Greens voters are both more likely to have negative than positive reasons for their voting intention, but differ a lot in what those reasons are
* Gillard is a bigger plus for Labor voters than Abbott is for Coalition voters
* policies are not a big factor
* the Greens have the lowest proportion of ‘party faithful’, and Labor the highest