Sentiment shifting as election nears

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

The uptick in political polling as the general election nears shows some clear trends in public sentiment, the most obvious and impactful of which is the continuation of falling support for Labour that began in late April.

Another with potentially significant ramifications is a recent dip in support for both National and Act.

What has caught the most attention of late, though — because of consistent polling for New Zealand First now above the 5 percent threshhold to get back into Parliament, along with those slipping numbers for National/Act — is Winston Peters coming into the frame as a possible, even probable, “kingmaker”.

This has prompted National leader Christopher Luxon to come off the fence and confirm that he would form a coalition with NZ First after the election, if he had to.

In a video posted to social media on Monday, Luxon said: “My strong preference is to form a strong and stable two-party coalition government between National and Act. I believe that government would be in the best interests of New Zealanders at this very uncertain time.

“However, if New Zealand First is returned to Parliament, and I need to pick up the phone to Mr Peters to keep Labour and the coalition of chaos out, I will make that call.

“Frankly, I think Chris Hipkins will ultimately do exactly the same thing.”

Hipkins emphatically denies that, and current polling indicates he is unlikely to be in a position to be able to form a government with NZ First support anyway — reducing Peters’ leverage in any negotiations with National.

The latest NZ Herald “poll of polls” — which inputs polling data and simulates election outcomes to work out the probability of different scenarios — finds National/Act now have a 39.9 percent chance of being able to form a government without another support party if the election was held this weekend, down from 51.5 percent when the simulation was run earlier in the week. (That probability rises to 99.7 percent if NZ First is in the mix.)

The simulation for actual polling day, which accounts for what might occur between now and October 14, has National/Act’s chances a tad higher at 44.8 percent (down from 56.5 percent at the start of this week).

For Labour/Green Party/Te Pāti Māori, the poll of polls now gives them 0 percent chance of being able to form a government if the election was held this weekend, rising to 0.1 percent for the election date.

The latest poll of polls has National’s likely party vote at 36.1 percent, Labour 27.2 percent, the Greens 12.2 percent, Act 11 percent, NZ First 5.2 percent and Te Pāti Māori 2.8 percent.

Of course, only one poll matters.