Latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton Poll: More bad news for Simon Bridges

A new political poll has brought more bad news for National leader Simon Bridges, showing the party down four points to 42 per cent and his personal polling also down a point to just 6 per cent.

That means National, while still in the 40s, is trailing Labour which is up two points to 45 per cent, according to the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has jumped five points to 44 per cent support as preferred prime minister in the poll, which was taken between February 9 and 13.

National frontbencher Judith Collins, who topped Bridges as preferred prime minister in last week's Newshub Reid Research poll, is steady on 6 per cent support as preferred prime minister in the 1 NEWS poll. That puts her neck and neck with her leader.

The gap between Labour's support partners the Green Party and New Zealand First has widened since the last 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll in December. The Greens are up 1 point to 6 per cent while New Zealand First is down a point to 3 per cent - two points under the 5 per cent threshold that would get it into Parliament in an election.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters also dropped a point in the preferred prime minister stakes to 3 per cent.

It was not all good news for Labour though. Optimism about the economy dropped 2 points from last year's poll to 35 per cent while pessimism was up 1 point.

National's 1 NEWS poll result is similar to last week's Newshub Reid Research poll which had National under Bridges' leadership diving to its worst result in more than a decade, falling 3.5 points to 41.6 per cent.

That was well behind Labour which jumped 4.9 points to 47.5 per cent in the Newshub poll.

It showed an even worse result for Bridges, on 5 per cent support as preferred prime minister compared with Collins on 6.2 per cent and Ardern on 41.8 per cent.

Prior to last week's Newshub Reid Research poll, its last poll was taken just before the May Budget last year.