NZ election poll watch: Opportunity holds as potential kingmaker in tight race

With a month to go to the New Zealand election on November 7, a Reid Research poll for RNZ has given the left bloc its first lead over the right in any poll since June.

Later the same day, a Verian poll for TVNZ’s 1News had the right holding its three-point lead from the same poll last week.

Reid Research poll

Conducted from September 24 to October 1 from a sample of 1,000 eligible voters, the Reid poll gave:

• Labour 30.8% (down 1.8 points since the mid-August Reid poll)
• National 25.9% (down 3.2)
• Greens 14.8% (up 4.6)
• NZ First 10.6% (down 1.3)
• ACT 9.0% (up 1.3)
• Opportunity 5.5% (up 0.2)
• Te Pāti Māori 2.0% (down 1.0)

Combining the votes of the left parties (Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori) against the right parties (National, NZ First and ACT) gives the left a 2.1-point lead. (The right held a 3.3-point lead in the previous Reid poll).

This is the first lead for the left since a mid-June Verian poll gave it a one-point lead.

However, the non-aligned Opportunity is just over the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament without winning an electorate seat. If these poll results are reflected on election day, Opportunity would hold the balance of power between the left and right blocs.

National leader and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Labour leader Chris Hipkins have record low net favourability scores: Luxon is at –23.7 (53.3% say he’s performing poorly, 29.6% well) and Hipkins at –3.6 (38.7% poorly, 35.1% well).

Verian poll

Conducted from October 1 to 5 from a sample of 1,001, the Verian poll gave National 29% of the vote (up one since the September 23–27 Verian poll), Labour 28% (steady), the Greens 16% (steady), NZ First 10% (up one), ACT 9% (down two), Opportunity 7% (up one) and Te Pāti Māori 0.6% (down 0.6).

Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity over the party’s land tax policy. The Verian poll asked whether National should reconsider that position, as a land tax was not a coalition bottom line for Opportunity: 40% wanted National to reconsider, 33% did not.

Overall picture

The graph below shows the right bloc lead or deficit against the left bloc in all polls since July. Both the Verian and Reid Research polls are consistent with Opportunity holding the balance of power.

The Wikipedia polls table gives Te Pāti Māori’s vote share to one decimal in Verian polls, but not other parties. Owing to this, the right’s lead increased from 2.8 points to 3.4 points.

However, Te Pāti Māori is most interested in winning at least one of the seven electorates reserved for those on the Māori roll to guarantee its return to parliament, despite being well below the 5% threshold for the party vote.

If Te Pāti Māori wins five of the seven Māori seats on about 1% of the party vote, there would be a four-seat “overhang”. Parliament would expand from its nominal 120 seats to 124, and Te Pāti Māori would have five seats. This would help the left bloc.

The Greens have held on to the record 16% they recorded in last week’s Verian poll, and surged 4.6 points to a near-record 14.8% in the Reid Research poll (their best result in this poll since 14.9% in October 2023).

A Roy Morgan poll was also released on Tuesday this week, with the right bloc lead up 2.5 points since August to 10.5 points, the highest in any poll in the graph.

This poll was taken from August 31 to September 27, however, so the majority of the fieldwork was done before any of the most recent three polls from Verian and Reid.

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