The formidable challenge confronted by the Yes campaign

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The case for the Voice is nearing disaster at the very point when Yes campaigners were assuming a surge of goodwill would carry them to a narrow victory at the referendum.

The campaigners risk being swept away by a surge in scepticism when they were hoping for enthusiasm. That is the clear finding from the latest Resolve Political Monitor, which shows the No vote has climbed from 54 to 57 per cent over the past month.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor shows the No vote has climbed from 54 to 57 per cent over the past month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“We’ve got an absolute battle on our hands,” said Yes 23 campaign director Dean Parkin on Monday morning. He is right.

Only one core group remains strongly positive about the Voice: the younger voters aged from 18 to 34, who are 58 per cent in favour on the “yes or no” question that is akin to the referendum. But their eagerness for change is not powerful enough to determine this referendum.

Other voters are drifting away. Support for the Voice is only 42 per cent among those aged 35 to 54 – an age when finding a home and raising a family can take priority. And it is just 31 per cent among those aged 55 and over.

This is a portrait of a community that will not back the Voice on the “vibe” alone. The more debate people hear about the Voice, the more questions they have about how it works and the more reluctant they seem to trust the government to get it right.

Gender is not a significant factor on either side of this national divide. While 58 per cent of men are against the Voice, 57 per cent of women say the same on the “yes or no” question.

Education is a far bigger factor. Australians with a university education are 54 per cent in favour of the Voice. Those with a trade are 65 per cent against. Those with a school education and no further qualifications are 61 per cent against.

The income divide is not as stark because the No vote is now the majority among three broad wealth groups – but with a bigger rejection among people with smaller earnings.

Those on high incomes are 52 per cent against the Voice, those on middle incomes are 60 per cent against and those on lower incomes are 63 per cent against.

The Yes campaign now confronts a formidable challenge. It has three weeks to engineer a dramatic swing in its favour before early voting opens at the beginning of October. It has only five weeks to accelerate that swing if it is to have any hope of victory on October 14.

The trends cannot be ignored. And yet they are ignored. At every key event this year, Anthony Albanese and the Yes campaign leaders have forged ahead as if they held the upper hand. They underestimated their opponents.

Rather than admit they were losing, they persevered with a message that promised modest change, offered no detail and assumed Australians would trust them to get it right.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, meanwhile, has the easier task of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about the change. He has done this with, at times, false claims like his assertion that it was wrong to count a tick as a Yes vote or his claim that the question could be changed before October 14.

More powerful, however, is the relentless speculation from the No side about what the Voice might become when nobody can be sure about the detail. Will it be a “bloated bureaucracy” as claimed by Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Coalition spokeswoman on Indigenous Australians? This is certainly not the government’s plan. The detail, however, is up to parliament.

Can the Yes campaign turn this around? An enormous effort to “get out the vote” is one factor that might make a difference on October 14.

Voting is compulsory, but only 86 per cent of eligible voters say they are likely to cast a ballot and 73 per cent say they are “very” likely. While 70 per cent of Yes voters say they are very likely to go to the ballot box, 75 per cent of No voters say the same thing.

Resolve director Jim Reed puts this down to a “rebel frustration” among No voters who are determined to have a say, and it means the Yes campaigners have to mobilise their supporters.

“If the Yes campaign can motivate more of their supporters to get enrolled in the next week, and then actually get out and vote, they will help offset this disadvantage,” he says.

Some supporters of the Voice, including those within the federal Labor caucus, believe more will be required to turn this trend around. Would Albanese contemplate assuring voters that the Voice would not lead to a treaty, or reparations? Could he do this without an angry breach with some Indigenous leaders?

The slight detail from the Yes side in recent weeks has been the assurance, on the day Albanese named the date for this referendum, that the Voice would only be an “advisory committee” to government. This downplayed its size and power. Would Albanese consider elaborating on how many members this committee might have, and how he wants parliament to limit their power?

Albanese won last year’s federal election with a surge in the final phase in the campaign – or what he called “kicking with the wind” after years of preparation. But this approach is not working with the Voice. The Yes campaigners are still kicking, but they need a shift in the wind.

There are very few options to change course this late in the campaign but without dramatic change they simply drift to defeat.

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