Auckland (The NZ Today)
The latest 1News Verian poll has tightened the election race even further, with National and Labour now level on 28 percent and neither the left nor right bloc able to form a government without Opportunity.
National has slipped one point while Labour is unchanged, leaving both major parties projected to win 34 seats each if the result were repeated on election day.
Opportunity has climbed another point to 8 percent, which would give the party about 10 MPs and potentially place it at the centre of post-election negotiations.
ACT has also risen one point to 10 percent, New Zealand First remains on 10 percent, while the Greens have eased one point to 15 percent. Te Pāti Māori is polling at 0.4 percent.
The leadership contest has also tightened.
Chris Hipkins has gained two points following last week’s TVNZ leaders’ debate and is now level with Christopher Luxon on 20 percent as preferred prime minister.
The poll leaves both traditional blocs short of a governing majority.
National, ACT and New Zealand First would hold 58 seats between them, while the Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori bloc would also fall short depending on how the Māori electorates are ultimately distributed.
That again leaves Opportunity in a potentially decisive position.
Leader Qiulae Wong said her party would first speak with whichever major party secured the largest number of seats on election night.
If those negotiations failed, Opportunity would then approach the second-largest party. Wong said if National and Labour ended up tied on seats, the party could talk to both sides at the same time.
Luxon has again ruled out working with Opportunity, despite the party’s continued rise in the polls.
Hipkins, meanwhile, pointed to the still sizeable undecided vote, which rose slightly to 12 percent, saying Labour remained focused on voters who had not yet made up their minds.
The economic mood has also changed little.
Thirty-nine percent of those surveyed expected the economy to improve, 25 percent expected it to worsen, while 37 percent thought conditions would remain about the same.
The poll was conducted between October 8 and 12 among 1007 eligible voters, using mobile phone and online sampling. It carries a maximum margin of error of about ±3.1 percentage points.
Meanwhile, with election day now less than four weeks away, the result suggests the contest remains highly fluid — and that Opportunity’s role could become increasingly important if neither major bloc can reach a majority on its own.
Source: 1News Verian Poll.
