Poll shows 'untrusted' Peters has large lead

A new poll has NZ First leader Winston Peters with a commanding lead in the Northland byelection even though almost half of the voters said they did not trust him.

With just two days of campaigning left, the 3 News Reid Research poll of 500 voters in Northland had Mr Peters on 54 per cent - well ahead of National's Mark Osborne on 34 per cent.

However, asked if they trusted Mr Peters, 48 per cent said no while 43 per cent said they did. Nine per cent did not know.

The result is devastating for National and Mr Osborne said it did not reflect the feeling he was getting on the ground. A further poll question also showed National's promise to upgrade 10 single lane bridges may have backfired - three quarters of voters believed it was a bribe, although 58 per cent also agreed with the measure while 39 per cent said they did not.

The same polling company had Mr Peters at 35 per cent and Mr Osborne at 30 per cent at the start of the campaign on March 5, the week after Mr Osborne was announced as the candidate.

Tonight's poll had Labour's candidate Willow Jean Prime on 10 per cent, down from 16 per cent in the earlier poll. That indicates Labour voters have picked up on messages from Labour's Andrew Little to vote for Mr Peters because he is most likely to hold National's decades long stranglehold on the seat.

The number of those who said they either would not vote, did not know or would vote for another candidate had also dropped from 19 per cent to just two per cent.

The poll was taken from March 19 to 22 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 per cent.