New Zealand’s 2026 General Election is done and dusted, but the outcome is too close to call. We won’t actually know who won until the special votes are tallied and the final result released by the Electoral Commission on Friday November 27.
Of the 2,432,403 votes that were counted on election night, Labour won 29.36 percent of the party vote up from 26.91 percent in 2023, National won 29.21 percent down from 38.08 percent, the Greens won 13.3 percent up from 11.6 percent, ACT won 10.92 percent up from 8.64 precent, New Zealand First won 9.78 percent up from 6.08 percent, Opportunity won 5.96 percent up from 2.22 percent, and the Maori Party won 0.57 percent down from 3.08 percent.
Combining party votes with electorate wins gives National 42 electorate seats in Parliament (an overhang of seven); Labour 36 seats (21 electorate and 15 list); the Greens 16 seats (two electorate and 14 list); ACT 13 seats (one electorate and 12 list); New Zealand First 12 list seats; Opportunity seven list seats; and the Maori Party five electorate seats (an overhang of four).
On those preliminary results, our Parliament will grow from 120 seats to 131 seats: an eleven-seat overhang – seven created by National and four by the Maori Party. That means a winning coalition needs 66 seats to govern.
While provisional election night results have the Labour bloc (including Opportunity) on 64 seats, and the Coalition on 67, that advantage may not survive the final count.
In other words, the election hinges on the 399,365 special votes – including 96,947 from overseas – that are still waiting to be counted. Special votes usually favour the left because university students and others voting outside their electorates tend to be a younger and more transient demographic that’s traditionally left-leaning.
In every MMP election, except the first in 1996 and again in 2005, special votes have reduced National’s election night result, with the Party losing at least one seat. In the last three elections it lost two. New Zealand First also lost a seat back in 1999.
In terms of the overall election, of New Zealand’s estimated 4,052,178 eligible voters, only 93.7 percent or 3,796,891 are on the electoral roll. That means 255,287 eligible voters did not register to vote.
Of those who could vote, only 74.6 percent did so – the second lowest voter turnout in MMP history.
And with regards to voting patterns, over two thirds of voters – 1,637,183 – took advantage of early voting, while just under a third of voters – 795,220 – turned out on Election Day.
An “official count” is now being undertaken by the Electoral Commission. This includes quality assurance checks through a recount of ‘ordinary votes’ not only to ensure no-one voted more than once, but to also identify voting anomalies such as votes received from people who have died. Once all special votes are received and counted, the Commission will release the final election result on November 27.
So, what does all this mean?
Firstly, New Zealand’s election outcome depends on the special votes – as this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator political analyst and former local body councillor Frank Newman explains:
“Special votes have traditionally favoured Labour and the Greens, and more recently the Maori Party. The Green Party has gained a list seat in every election since 2008, except 2020. Assuming that trend continues, a transfer of one seat from New Zealand First to the Greens, assuming no change to the electorates, would reduce the Coalition’s current three-seat margin (67:64) to one (66: 65).
“If a list seat is lost, then the marginal electorates become critical. National losing one would result in a hung Parliament (65: 65). Losing two would result in a win for the left (64: 65).
“Three electorates are in play.
“In Wairarapa, National’s Mike Butterick has an election night margin of just 136 votes over Labour’s Kieran McAnulty. There are an estimated 4,000 special votes. A positive for National is that the 2023 special votes favoured Butterick.
“In Hamilton East, National’s Ryan Hamilton is ahead by 456 votes. In 2017 and 2020, the special votes favoured Labour, but Hamilton in 2023. There are an estimated 6,000 special votes.
“There is an additional positive for the right – a possible, but not probable, switch in Mt Roskill. Labour’s Michael Wood leads National’s Carlos Cheung by 262 votes. In 2023 the special votes favoured Cheung slightly. There are an estimated 5,000 special votes to be counted.
“Should a worst-case scenario prevail where New Zealand First loses a list seat to a party on the left, AND National loses both Wairarapa and Hamilton East then the right vs left bloc numbers would switch to a 64 vs 65 win for the left.”
In other words, the special votes could deliver a Coalition victory, a hung Parliament, or a win for the radical left.
If the special votes deliver a hung Parliament, as the largest party, National should be the first port-of-call for Opportunity. While TOP originally campaigned on a Universal Benefit and a land tax, they replaced those extreme policies with five bottom lines: forcing lower supermarket prices, ‘cleaning up’ political lobbying, taking a bipartisan approach to health funding, banning commercial fishing bottom trawling, and strengthening the Climate Commission and New Zealand’s Paris obligations.
Whether National, ACT and New Zealand First could agree to work with such a Party remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome, it’s important to remember that behind Opportunity’s benign façade sits MPs not only determined to repeal the Coalition’s Marine and Coastal Area Act amendments – paving the way for tribal control of our entire coastline – but also committed to Labour’s radical He Puapua plan to replace democracy with tribal rule by 2040.
Secondly, as predicted, all of National’s party votes were “wasted” – their 706,680 party votes did not deliver a single MP for the centre-right. Only ACT and New Zealand First’s 500,751 party votes delivered list MPs for the Coalition.
In comparison, on the left, only the Maori Party’s 13,845 party votes were wasted – all of their other 1,176,530 party votes delivered list MPs.
Thirdly, the mainstream media succeeded in engineering the left-leaning Opportunity Party’s entry into Parliament, by showering it with months of favourable publicity that failed to expose the dangerous ideology concealed behind its carefully crafted public image.
Fourthly, the polling companies proved their worth at this election, signalling early on that a major shift was occurring as voters abandoned traditional parties in favour of minor parties. An analysis of their last poll before the election shows that Curia Research accurately predicted the election outcome for all seven of the main parties within the margin of error, followed by Verian (Colmar Brunton) and Roy Morgan which accurately predicted six out of seven, then Anacta (Talbot Mills) and Reid Research with five out of seven, and finally Freshwater Strategy with four out of seven.
And fifthly, the call for strategic voting complicated this election. While split voting has been on the rise over recent years, increasing from 27 percent in 2020 to 36 percent in 2023, the Maori Party’s announcement in August that it intended to use vote splitting to create an overhang in Parliament and secure victory for the left took the practice to a new level. Rather than simply encouraging supporters to split their vote, the party set out to deliberately manipulate the way seats are allocated under MMP.
It did so by engineering a sham party list containing only their Party Secretary, while instructing supporters to cast electorate votes for their candidates with party votes to Labour or the Greens.
In contrast, even though National’s strong electorate performance and weak party vote led to calls for National supporters to give their party vote to ACT or New Zealand First to ensure their votes would not be wasted and to boost the centre-right, the Party’s leadership countered by urging supporters to “double-tick” National.
In a remarkable display of political hypocrisy, Labour and the Greens – both of which benefited from the Maori Party’s vote splitting campaign – are now accusing National of rorting the system! Will Labour and the Greens now rule out working with the Maori Party – or is this yet another case of left-wing double standards: one rule for themselves, and another for everyone else!
With the debate about strategic voting dominating the news in the lead up to the election, it will be interesting to see what the Electoral Commission’s 2026 split voting analysis actually shows.
Looking objectively at the situation New Zealand now faces, it is difficult not to see the election outcome as an indictment of the centre-right – or, more specifically, of National.
It is said opposition parties don’t win elections, governments lose them. If that occurs, Chris Luxon would be the first National Prime Minister in New Zealand’s political history, to lose an election after serving just one term.
Only two governments have ever been in that situation: the 1957 Walter Nash Labour Government which was punished by voters for their “Black Budget” tax hikes on beer, tobacco, and petrol; and Norman Kirk’s 1972 Labour Government, which not only struggled under the economic shocks of the 1973 global oil crisis, but also over the PM’s tragic death in office, with the caretaker PM Bill Rowling, no match for National’s Robert Muldoon.
In other words, New Zealand voters have historically operated on a general convention of giving a newly elected government at least two terms to implement its agenda – with National governments usually getting three terms or even four!
However, this time around, voters may not have been so tolerant – and the big question is, why?
It’s fair to say that National badly misjudged voter sentiment in 2023. While Coalition supporters were calling for serious cuts to government spending, a dramatic reduction in public service numbers, and the removal of the radical He Puapua policies Labour had inflicted onto the country, the Coalition – namely National as the dominant party – tinkered.
It said it was getting the books back in order, but government spending and the debt continued to rise. It said it was cutting public servants back to 2017 levels, but most of the jobs that were axed were vacant – and public service numbers increased. And even when major directives were issued to remove He Puapua policies – such as requiring public services to be delivered on the basis of need, not race – there was no follow through to hold CEOs who blatantly ignored the Coalition’s demands to account.
In the end, the Government failed to sufficiently ease cost of living pressures or deliver promised jobs and growth – and while external factors such as the Middle East oil crisis were partly responsible, there’s no doubt the Prime Minister’s failure to connect with voters and take the public with him were significant factors in National’s loss of support.
To their credit both ACT and New Zealand First continually signalled their disillusionment with National’s failure to go fast enough and far enough in honouring their 2023 election promises – and as a result, many National supporters shifted allegiance to the Coalition partners during the three-year term.
Meanwhile, National’s constituency MPs, only too well aware of their Party’s on-going slide in the polls, worked hard in their electorates to strengthen local support, knowing their political survival depended on it.
The effectiveness of their strategy was evident on election night when, despite falling support for the Party and some particularly challenging boundary changes, 42 of National’s 44 electorate MPs held their seats – although two are too close to call.
Finally, while a review of our electoral system is now inevitable, it is crucial that an investigation is also held into the influence the mainstream media had on the election outcome.
Furthermore, given that the reserved Maori Seats have not only been radicalised by the Maori Party but are now being used to manipulate the electoral system, an inquiry is now required into whether it’s time to carry out the recommendation of 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System: “In the form of Maori representation we have proposed for MMP, there would be no separate Maori constituency or list seats, no Maori roll, and no Maori option. All New Zealanders would vote in the same way for the party they wish to govern, and for a constituency MP.”
If the Coalition is returned, National should back ACT and New Zealand First to give voters the Maori Seat Referendum that is long overdue.
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