Dunne's Weekly: Next Election Still National's To Lose

The first opinion polls of the year send a mighty wake-up call to the coalition government, but they are not the death knell some might think. Polls are always a snapshot in time, subject to particular influences at the time they were taken. A more accurate assessment emerges from the trends that they disclose over time, rather than the result of any one individual poll.

In this regard, a rolling average of the polls shows that while an election held today would be extremely close, the coalition government is still marginally ahead of the Opposition bloc. However, that lead has been reducing steadily. While for most of 2024 the difference between the two blocs did not move much since the 2023 election, National’s support has fallen sharply since September/October, with Labour’s increasing, although not as sharply.

Nevertheless, the National-led coalition is more precariously positioned at present than each of the last two Labour-led governments were at similar stages in the previous two Parliaments. For example, at the equivalent point in in 2019, the Labour-led coalition was leading the centre right bloc by almost 12 percentage points. And at the same point in the last Parliamentary term, in 2022, the Labour-led bloc still had a substantial lead over National and its allies.

Much can of course change between now and election day. By the start of 2019, National was beginning to open a small lead over Labour, only to see that completely obliterated by the onset of Covid19, and Labour’s historic election landslide later that year. Similarly, in 2022 Labour’s comfortable lead over National waned and fell away altogether during the year. Labour’s handling of Covid19 was no longer an asset and was turning people off in droves, leading to the government’s defeat in 2023.

Therefore, it is far too soon to draw firm conclusions about the implications of the parties’ current ratings for the 2026 election outcome. However, some general observations can be made, based on the figures.

The first is that unlike any other lead party of government under MMP, National has no electoral fat to draw upon when times get tough. Its 38% party vote share at the last election – far lower than the vote share of the Key and Ardern governments when they were first elected – means it has no reservoir of support to draw upon.

Its current polling average of just under 33% of the party vote is at least ten percentage points below what it should be for the party to be confident of re-election in two years’ time. Of arguably more concern for the government is that National does not yet appear to have a strategy for growing its vote share to this extent.

At the same time, the situation is not all that rosy for Labour. The polling average shows its vote share has grown by only about three percentage points in the last six months, leaving it still well below the level of support it would need to lead a government after the next election.

Of the minor parties, support for the Greens and ACT has been relatively stable since the last election. Both are on average rating less than a percentage point higher than at the election. Although one recent poll showed New Zealand First’s support hovering around the 5% party vote threshold level, its support on average has not moved from the 6.6% party vote level it recorded on election day. Given New Zealand First’s historic propensity to perform far better at election time than it ever does in opinion polls during a Parliamentary term, that leaves it in a comfortable position at present.

Te Pāti Māori looks to have more than doubled its party vote support since last year’s election – to around 5.4% according to the latest polling averages. But it is unlikely to see this rise in support translate into a significant increase in its number of seats at the next election. This is because all its seats are electorate seats. If it holds all these seats at the next election and wins around 5.4% of the party vote as current polls suggest, it would still only be entitled to the six electorate seats.

This creates a potential problem for Labour should it be in a position to form a government after the next election. Most of the new votes Te Pāti Māori could attract will likely have come from Labour, given Māori voters’ historic links to the Labour Party, but the return in terms of seats won for the centre left bloc may not be as great as it might be had those voters stayed loyal to Labour.

A further complication for Labour is that Te Pāti Māori is almost certain to make policy demands – like the establishment of an independent Treaty of Waitangi Commissioner with the power to veto government actions about the Treaty – that Labour will find difficult to accept in whole or part, without risking alienating conservative elements of its own core constituency. Hipkins’ vacillation on the issue demonstrates Labour’s problem: it cannot afford to be too dismissive of Te Pāti Māori’s demands because it is unlikely to be able to form a government without them, but, if it is too agreeable, it risks not getting enough votes of its own to be in a government-forming position.

While ACT and the Greens have uncompromisingly nailed their colours to the National and Labour masts respectively, New Zealand First has been somewhat more ambivalent about its options. At this stage, however, there appears to still be too much bad blood between New Zealand First and Labour, following the experience of the 2017-2020 coalition, to see a Labour-led government involving New Zealand First as a viable option.

All this suggests that the next election is still the National-led coalition’s to lose. However, more antics of the type seen from David Seymour of late could hasten that process.

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