Auckland (The NZ Today)
National has fallen below 25 percent in a new RNZ-Reid Research poll, while Labour remains above 30 percent and Opportunity has climbed to its strongest result yet — producing a dramatically different picture from another major poll released just a day earlier.
The latest survey puts Labour on 30.6 percent, ahead of National on 24.8 percent, while Opportunity has jumped 1.7 points to 7.2 percent.
National’s result is down 1.1 points from the previous RNZ-Reid Research poll and is even lower than the 25.6 percent party vote it recorded in the 2020 election, when it suffered one of its worst modern-era results.
The Greens are on 14.5 percent, ACT has risen to 10.1 percent and New Zealand First sits just behind on 9.9 percent.
Te Pāti Māori is on 1.9 percent, meaning its return to Parliament on these numbers would depend on electorate victories.
The biggest mover is Opportunity.
Qiulae Wong’s party has risen from 5.5 percent in the previous RNZ-Reid poll to 7.2 percent, strengthening its potential role in post-election negotiations.
On the poll’s seat projection, Labour would take 37 seats, the Greens 18 and Opportunity nine — giving those three parties a combined 64 seats in a 120-seat Parliament.
National would have 30 seats, while ACT and New Zealand First would each take 12, leaving the current governing coalition on 54.
Those numbers assume particular electorate outcomes and could change if overhang seats are created.
The result is especially striking because it differs sharply from the latest 1News-Verian poll, released on Tuesday.
That survey had National ahead on 29 percent, Labour on 27 percent and Opportunity on 6 percent.
The two polls were conducted over almost the same period and each surveyed around 1000 eligible voters, but they used different methodologies.
Reid Research surveyed online between October 20 and 26, while Verian used a mix of mobile phone interviews and online panels between October 21 and 25. Both reported a maximum sampling error of about ±3.1 percentage points.
The sharply different results underline why individual polls should be treated as snapshots rather than predictions of the November 7 result.
National campaign chair Simeon Brown rejected the RNZ-Reid result as being out of step with other polling and said the election remained close.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins, however, said the result reflected growing support for political change.
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong welcomed her party’s rise but cautioned that the election outcome was still uncertain.
The poll also gives Hipkins an advantage in the preferred prime minister measure.
He is on 23.3 percent, up 1.4 points, while Christopher Luxon remains on 17.1 percent.
The wider mood indicators are also difficult for the Government in this survey.
Just over half of respondents — 50.5 percent — said New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction, compared with 30.5 percent who believed it was moving in the right direction.
Luxon’s performance rating was also negative, with 53.8 percent saying he was doing poorly as prime minister and 30.1 percent rating his performance positively.
With voting already underway and just over a week remaining until election day, the latest numbers reinforce one point that has been evident across several polls: Opportunity remains central to coalition calculations.
Source: RNZ-Reid Research Poll and RNZ
