NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan told The Front Page the model aggregates multiple public and private polls and uses historical data going back to 2014 to assess key trends and performance.
“We take all of that data, put it into a model, and weigh every individual poll’s performance with how it actually did during the election.
“We use all of that to run 4000 simulations of the election. The computer runs 4000 different elections, and then using those 4000 different results, we can predict with pretty good certainty what’s going happen on election night.
“We’re very far away from the election ... The way to interpret this is to remember the New York Times’ polling tracker on the night of the 2016 election gave Hillary Clinton pretty good odds of winning. She famously didn’t,” he said.
Despite recent negative headlines and suspicions of volatility, the coalition has strengthened its power over the past year. However, this growth is uneven.
National’s support has dropped, while New Zealand First’s support has surged. It suggests support is shifting within the coalition rather than away from it.
Coughlan said, however, that many people shifting from National to NZ First would still want a right-wing government.
“The polls would suggest that very little of New Zealand First support is coming from Labour … and so, if you did go with Labour, you could potentially see New Zealand First support cratering.”
This makes it unlikely that Peters would switch sides to back a Labour-led government.
Last month, Peters reiterated his 2022 promise to rule out the left after National’s Nicola Willis said the possibility of the NZ First leader working with Labour in the future was a “live risk”.
“This is just election-year politics. He’s working to get his votes; we’re working to get ours,” she said.
Peters poured water on that fire quickly, taking to social media saying, “Four years ago in 2022, a full year before the last election, we ruled out working with the Labour Party.
“We did that because the left is full of woke self-confessed communists who would turn our country into a basket case. Nothing has changed. In fact they are even worse,” he posted, “No, we won’t do a deal with Labour or their Marxist and separatist mates.”
Read more about the latest numbers and predictions from the NZ Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
- What’s beneath the surface
- Global political trends
- NZ First’s upward trajectory.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
