Kevin Rudd first battle is Murdoch in Australian election

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday launched into the first day of Australia's election campaign faced with a poll showing his personal support has slumped and the Murdoch press urging voters to "kick this mob out".

Rudd on Sunday named September 7 as the day Australians will go to the polls, hoping to complete a stunning political comeback with victory for his Labor Party three years after it ousted him.

But he faces an uphill battle after what newspapers said was years of a "toxic political climate" that saw Julia Gillard topple him as Labor leader in 2010. He then defeated her to retake the job in June in hopes of saving the party from an election wipeout.

Since then Rudd has re-energised Labor. But, in the first poll since the election was announced, the Tony Abbott-led conservative coalition continues to lead 52 to 48 per cent, unchanged from two weeks ago.

More worryingly for Rudd, the Newspoll of 1,147 voters published yesterday in The Australian newspaper showed a jump of six percentage points in the number of people dissatisfied with his performance during the past fortnight. And while he remains the preferred leader by a long margin over Abbott, the poll showed he has lost some ground.

Labor is also battling the might of the Rupert Murdoch press, which controls 70 per cent of the country's print media, with the mogul's The Daily Telegraph in Sydney devoting its entire front page yesterday to Rudd and an editorial under the headline: "Finally, you now have the chance to ... Kick This Mob Out".