Latest polling keeps Gillard in a sweat

All of the national polling is showing the photo-finish Julia Gillard has promised, with Labor edging in front or the Coalition taking a razor-thin lead from week to week.

But the breakdown by state voting intentions and examination of the marginal seats actually gives Tony Abbott a slightly better chance than the 51 to 49 per cent two-party-preferred projection in the latest Newspoll analysis.

Labor's doing everything it can to avoid the hollow victory of winning the popular vote but losing the election.

The Labor Party and the Liberal Party are both aware of the

huge regional differences affecting the national polls, and see the polling volatility as the campaign progresses.

Since starting the election campaign with a 10-point lead on a two-party-preferred basis, Labor has lost it, gone behind, clawed back and now sits two points in front.

The real picture of the campaign is even more complicated.

Gillard's strengths and weaknesses are all in the wrong place for her government.

The surge of support for Labor in her home states of South Australia and Victoria, which has evened off a little in the past week, promises to deliver only four seats from the Coalition at best.

Besides, the high Greens' support in Victoria, already draining Labor's primary vote to four points below its 2007 election level, is threatening to carry away Labor-held Melbourne for the first time.

What's more, a resurgence of anti-Labor feeling in Western Australia as miners revive their campaign against the mineral resources tax could mean Labor would lose at least two seats in the west and wipe out any gains in South Australia and Victoria.

This then puts the focus on the Labor-held marginal seats in NSW and Queensland, where the Prime Minister and the ALP are much weaker than they were when the same states swept Rudd Labor to power.

It also highlights the problem of Labor's primary vote, which remains in the fatal zone beneath 40 per cent in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia.

Although Labor has recovered ever so slightly in NSW, its primary vote still remains below 40 per cent and the Coalition's is at its minimum target of 43 per cent.

It's worse in Queensland for Labor, where there are more seats at risk.

Even Kevin Rudd's offer to help in Queensland has had no immediate effect, with Labor going to a new low of 35 per cent while Tony Abbott equalled Gillard as preferred prime minister in Queensland.