Cam Slater: Latest Poll: Labour Getting Cleaned Out

The latest 1News/Verian Poll is out and Labour’s poll disaster continues. This is now the eighth poll in a row showing them being bundled out in a blood bath. National has shed a bit of support too, but that is entirely consistent with normal polling patterns.

National and ACT remain on track to form a government after the election according to the latest 1News Verian poll, although the margin remains slim after the two main parties dipped slightly.

The poll has National on 37%, down 2%, and Labour on 27%, down 1%.

The difference appears to have been picked up by the minor parties, with ACT and the Greens both on 12%, up 2% each. New Zealand First and Te Pati Maori are steady on 5% and 3% respectively.

It means the right bloc – National and ACT – would have a total of 61 seats in Parliament, just enough to form a government. Should it include New Zealand First’s seats – which National leader Christopher Luxon has remained consistently tight-lipped on – it would total 67 seats.

The left bloc falls well short of the numbers required to form a government, with Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori’s seats totalling 53.

It’s the second 1News Verian poll in a row that suggests New Zealand First may be on a course to return to Parliament after its election disaster in 2020, where it received just 2.6% of the party vote, after receiving 7.2% in the 2017 election.

The don’t know/refused to answer response was 12%, which – while an increase on last week’s poll – was mostly consistent with all seven 1News polls this year.

1News

I predicted this weeks ago when I said that the two big parties would slide back a bit during the campaign. National is still failing to get back to John Key levels. That said, Labour are now approaching the low point of the David Cunliffe era.

If National slides a bit further then National and Christopher Luxon are going to have to come to an accommodation with Winston Peters; again something I’ve long predicted.

It is astonishing that Christopher Luxon still cannot get past Chris Hipkins in the Preferred PM stakes. But he did perform well in the 1News debate, far better than I expected, which also will have shocked Hipkins. For his part, Hipkins came across as a whinging, whining, dropkick.

The other minor parties may as well give up, all they are doing is wasting votes, and benefiting the larger parties.

Labour are dead in the water, no one is listening to them anymore.

Right now they may actually cause an overhang by winning more electorate seats than entitled to from their party vote. If that happens then Labour will get no list MPs, meaning senior MPs like Grant Robertson and David Parker will be cast aside by voters.

This is getting to be fun.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.