Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is welcomed at Waitangi earlier this year, flanked by Green Party co-leader James Shaw and National Leader of the Opposition Christopher Luxon. Photo / Tania Whyte
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is welcomed at Waitangi earlier this year, flanked by Green Party co-leader James Shaw and National Leader of the Opposition Christopher Luxon. Photo / Tania Whyte
Polls are a regular part of our political discourse - a regular update of which party is performing best, who our preferred prime minister is, and capturing the public’s mood on some of the key matters of our time.
As we get closer to election day, these pollsbecome more frequent, and provide a clearer idea of who will win come Election Day (though those results aren’t always accurate).
This year, the New Zealand Herald is running a “Poll of Polls”, created by data editor Chris Knox, which pulls in all the insights from various polling companies to create an average of all the results. The most recent dataset showed it is increasingly likely NZ First will return to Parliament in October, while the chances of a Labour-led coalition are slipping.
For this week’s episode of On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast, Knox joins host and deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan to discuss how polling works in general.
They discuss the margin of error and how that comes into play, the overall accuracy of polls, how polls are conducted, why electorate polling is so difficult in New Zealand, and whether or not polls become “self-fulfilling” and push voters towards or against certain parties.
Listen to the full episode for more on the methodology behind election polls.
On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available on Fridays.
