Election 2023: The Christopher Luxon, Chris Hipkins election debate showdown - why Luxon is keen to be the rookie underdog

The second-most sought-after trophy in an election campaign is that of being the underdog ahead of the televised election debates – second only to the title of Prime Minister at the end of the campaign.

Ahead of the first 1News debate next Tuesday night, National Party leader Christopher Luxon has set about this with the determination of Gollum seeking the ring.

On Wednesday, his mission led him to the extremes of singing the praises of his rival, Labour leader Chris Hipkins.

There was a bit of shade when he gave Hipkins’ credentials as being “a 20-year career politician” (and Hipkins has only been in Parliament for 15 years).

However, he went on to describe Hipkins as “a champion debater - he’s probably the best debater in our Parliament, and probably in New Zealand”.

(Luxon’s own debaters, deputy leader Nicola Willis and campaign chairman Chris Bishop, might have raised an eyebrow at that assessment).

Luxon went on to say that by contrast, he had never done a debate and usually lost the ones he had with his wife Amanda, but he was at least hoping to have some fun.

That is complete and utter nonsense, of course, aimed at trying to give Luxon the advantage of low expectations going into the first televised debate next week.

Luxon is, after all, apparently confident in his ability to completely fix the economy, give everybody their hip ops and halt criminals in their tracks within days of becoming PM.

It’s stretching credibility to simultaneously try to claim he can’t handle a head-to-head debate with a man he has repeatedly tried to depict as an incompetent nincompoop up until now.

The reason for the sudden flush of faux modesty is because election debates are not just about the debate itself: it’s about who is declared the “winner” afterwards.

Election debates do not necessarily change votes, but they can play a part in making up the minds of undecided voters.

A boring debate in which both sides perform adequately has little impact.

However, they can also reveal a leader to be clever, funny, genuine, a fraud or an idiot.

In live debates there is nowhere to hide, there are no second takes. A big clanger or mistake, especially in the first debate, can seed a perception or an idea about a leader that is very hard to shed.

There is a view - with some evidence - that the underdog usually “wins” the first debate simply because they did better than people thought they would do.

The examples include Sir John Key in his first debate against his formidable opponent: the incumbent PM Helen Clark. They also include former National leader Judith Collins up against Jacinda Ardern, whose communications skills had been widely lauded.

Hipkins won’t be fooled by Luxon. He knows he has little chance of being considered the underdog, so hasn’t really bothered trying to claim it. His desultory effort consisted of claiming Luxon did have some advantage because he had been the leader of his party for longer than Hipkins had. Hipkins has also been in Parliament for 15 years to Luxon’s three, of course.

Which is even more of a nonsense than Luxon’s claim.

Hipkins privately thinks Luxon will be a fair bit better than some commentators seem to think.

The biggest dangers for Luxon will be either that he bores everybody to sleep, or in his grasp of detail. It pays to be able to rattle off both your own policy details and numbers – and those of your opponent.

However, Luxon has been putting in a lot of time over a lot of months preparing for this debate, having dress rehearsals against at least two Hipkins stand-ins, as well as in his media appearances. He’s been honing his lines, targeting in particular “working New Zealanders” and testing a few on the campaign trail.

He will definitely be out for first blood in the debate. He will almost certainly be a whole lot better than he is currently pretending that he will be.