NZ election poll watch: right still leads left, but Opportunity could deny it a majority

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

With the November 7 general election now just over two months away, and party campaigning about to start in earnest, political polls are coming into sharp relief.

Since the 2023 election, which saw a Labour majority government defeated by a right-wing coalition of National, NZ First and ACT, New Zealand’s mixed member proportional (MMP) system has settled into a broadly left-right split.

Based on the all-important party vote, the choice has been between a right-wing coalition of National, ACT and NZ First, or a left-wing coalition of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

But the rise in the polls of the centrist Opportunity Party has seen that dynamic begin to shift, suggesting the party could be in a kingmaker role after the election if current trends continue.

I’ve calculated a right-minus-left number for all polls since July using the Wikipedia polls table. While Labour leads National in some polls, National’s allies (ACT and NZ First) have a greater combined vote than Labour’s allies (the Greens and Te Pāti Māori).

Te Pāti Māori is below the 5% threshold in national polls, but is expected to win at least one of the seven electorates reserved for those on the Māori roll, and thus return to parliament. All other existing parliamentary parties are well above the 5% threshold.

The graph below shows whether the right or left coalition is ahead in all national polls conducted since July. There have been five pollsters: Curia for the Taxpayers’ Union, Reid Research for RNZ, Verian for 1 News, Roy Morgan and Talbot Mills (TM in the graph).

Roy Morgan’s polls are conducted over a whole month, so I’m using the midpoint fieldwork date of the polls, not the endpoint.

The graph tracks all polls by the same pollster with a line connecting their polls. This shows that in the Curia and Reid polls, there has been a swing to the right since their July polls, although the Talbot Mills poll has a small swing to the left.

As more polls are released in the coming months, they will fill out the currently empty space on the graph.

Opportunity could win balance of power

The right-wing coalition leads the left-wing coalition by 3–8 points in all the most recent polls.

The right would be a clear favourite to retain a parliamentary majority, but the Opportunity Party is winning 5–8% of the party vote in the latest polls. Formed in 2016 as The Opportunities Party – known as TOP – it failed to clear the 5% threshold in the first three national elections it contested.

If Opportunity clears the threshold this time, it would deny the right coalition a parliamentary majority unless their lead over the left is greater than Opportunity’s vote share.

The polls could change between now and the election, of course. At the moment, it’s more likely than not that Opportunity would win enough seats to prevent the right coalition from winning an overall majority.

Opportunity intends to negotiate first with whichever other party wins the highest proportion of the list vote.

Trends in party support and leaders’ ratings

At the 2023 election, National won 38.1% of the national party vote, Labour 26.9%, the Greens 11.6%, ACT 8.6%, NZ First 6.1%, Te Pāti Māori 3.1% and Opportunity 2.2%.

National’s support has slumped to the high 20s to low 30s in current polls, with Labour’s vote up to the low 30s in most polls.

Other parties that have improved since the 2023 election are NZ First (now in double digits in many polls) and Opportunity. NZ First’s rise reflects an international trend where populist right parties are doing well.

The only poll that appears to have asked specifically for approval ratings of the party leaders is the Curia poll. In early August, it had National leader and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at –19 net approval (steady since the early June Curia poll), Labour leader Christopher Hipkins at –7 (steady), ACT leader David Seymour at –24 (down six) and NZ First leader Winston Peters at –16 (down 11).

New Zealand polls use a multi-way preferred-prime-minister ranking of Luxon, Hipkins, Seymour, Peters and Greens leader Chlöe Swarbrick. Most have Hipkins narrowly in first place ahead of Luxon, but Peters has surged into the double digits recently, while Swarbrick and Seymour each receive 4–8%.

So, as with the party vote, right-wing leaders lead left-wing leaders overall as preferred prime minister.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.