Frank Newman: Election 2026 - The electorates to watch on election night

Unlike previous general elections, the electorate results are likely to determine the next government. When a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitlement allows, it retains those additional seats, creating an overhang. In this election, the Maori Party will almost certainly create an overhang, but for the first time since MMP was introduced in 1996, it may also apply to National.

Of the 71 electorate seats, 58 appear safe, barring any major shift in election dynamics during the final days of the campaign or significant errors in the polling data.

These predictions take account of boundary changes and assume that the decline in National’s party vote (down eight percentage points since the 2023 election) will not be significant enough to change the outcome in the safe electorates. That seems a reasonable assumption, given that a majority of National’s lost support appears to have shifted to its coalition partners, which are generally not actively campaigning for the electorate vote, apart from ACT in its two seats.

The electorates I consider safe are:

Owen Jennings: TOP in Hypocrisy

Questions for Voters:

Opportunity (TOP), helped by a fawning media, are posing as kingmakers in this election.  Given that this critical role would determine our future for a decade or more should we not know more about them?

Gary Judd KC: A Sacred Trust Betrayed

Judicial independence and the reliance on tikanga in New Zealand courts

In A Story is Not Enough — Witchcraft and all that, I explained why there is justification for thinking that we, or some of us at any rate, do witchcraft. It reflects how low those who exercise power have come that even Parliament has attributed human personality to rivers and mountains.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Here's what the data from police move-on orders tells us

Have you seen the data from the first nine days of police using move-on orders?

Guess how many of the 29 people police moved on were homeless. Four. Four of them.

Four out of the 29 were homeless, which means 25 of them, the vast, vast, vast majority, had homes, or at least addresses, they could go and spend their day at instead.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.11.26

Wednesday November 4, 2026 

News:
Government backing iwi-led geothermal potential
Funding for two iwi-led geothermal projects near Rotorua will help build the knowledge needed to better understand the Bay of Plenty’s geothermal potential, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says.

The Regional Infrastructure Fund will provide a $3.82 million loan towards the $5.53m Ngāti Rangiteaorere geothermal exploration programme in the Tikitere-Ruahine geothermal field, northeast of Rotorua.

JC: Facts Are Facts Mr Luxon

Since 1996 we have voted under the MMP electoral system. Until now the need to highlight the difference between the current and previous electoral system has not been necessary. This time the ‘bright on the right’ have become aware that in 2026 things are different. The National Party leadership don’t see it that way. They are running a campaign for ‘two ticks blue’, asking for both your electorate and party vote.

Ani O'Brien: The Left does not have a monopoly on empathy

Compassion for me, contempt for thee: Chloe Swarbrick and the politics of selective compassion

When a man approached the home of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters with a crowbar last year, Peters was not home. However, when the man shattered a window sending glass raining down on Kobe the black labrador, Peters’ partner and a friend were inside. It is fair to assume the women were utterly terrified. The house had been surrounded for a few days by pro-Palestine activists chanting at times abusive and aggressive slogans. It was actual violence.

Professor Jerry Coyne: Polynesian navigation and Indigenous “ways of knowing”

One of the most-cited empirical achievements of indigenous peoples is the ability of Polynesians, Melanesians, and Micronesians to navigate their way across vast, unmarked expanses of the Pacific Ocean to get to small, uninhabited islands. How did they do it? And, regardless of their navigational methods, how many attempted voyages failed, with the navigators and their human cargo perishing? We’ll never know because there was no way to keep records.

David Farrar: The one thing everyone agrees on – Parliament is better off with Bish there

I blogged a few days on how Winston Peters endorsed Chris Bishop for Hutt South, saying he is “is a cut above the regular MP”.

Richard Prebble also wrote on Chris Bishop:

Richard Prebble: Interesting election races - Chlöe Swarbrick

Auckland Central is a remarkable electorate.

The Greens hold the seat. National won the party vote in 2023. Nikki Kaye defeated Jacinda Ardern twice.

When I represented Auckland Central for Labour, I twice had the biggest majority in the country.

Bruce Cotterill: New Zealand needs a long-term vision, not more political tinkering

The election race is grinding on, and many of us cannot wait for November 7. Sadly, our eagerness is not for the excitement of polling day, but for the relief of having it behind us.

The polls are close, and none of us knows what voters will deliver. But one thing is clear: we are unlikely to be offered an aspirational, long-term vision for New Zealand.

Kerre Woodham: This campaign has been a head-scratcher

This time next week we'll have voted. The preliminary results will be in, discussions will be underway to form a government. Thank heavens. Seems like a very long haul this particular election, but I have to remind myself that we are so very lucky to have the luxury of getting bored during an election campaign. Mexico, Colombia, the Philippines, Serbia, they're countries that would love the unimaginable luxury of peaceful campaign meetings and walkabouts in public and election days where you can just walk up, cast your vote, and come home to family members that might have voted differently from you, doesn't matter.

Bob Edlin: Elijah Pue – the councillor who can’t see the logic....

.....of depriving unelected committee members of voting rights

A Horizons Regional Councillor has declared he “fails to see the logic” in the law change that removed voting rights from non-elected members on council committees.

The councillor is Elijah Pue. The law change which bothers him was designed to fortify democratic arrangements that had been impaired by non-elected members – unaccountable to voters – voting on local authority committees.

Tuesday November 3, 2026 

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1News Verian Poll: Final poll - Election set to go down to wire as National's partners slip

Labour and National have both gained in the final 1News Verian poll of the election campaign as ACT and NZ First slip, with Opportunity remaining on course to holding the keys to the next government.

With four days to go until polling day, no party has a clear lead, and the race is shaping up as a possible photo finish between left and right.


Click to view

See the full poll results HERE

NZCPR Newsletter: Who Really Runs the Country?

Voting for the 2026 General Election is well underway. At the last election, 60 percent of voters had voted by Election Day. It looks as if it could be higher at this election.

There is no doubt the contest between the left and centre-right blocs remains too close to call.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will National's vote-splitting strategy just confuse voters?

Jeez, I reckon it'll be panic stations in National that we're yet again talking about the vote-splitting strategy because this, I think, is now definitely confusing voters.

I don't know if the people pushing this strategy realise how confusing it is for a lot of people, particularly those who don't engage with politics all that often. These are the low-interest voters who tune in only when an election rolls around.

Geoff Parker: Te Tiriti And The Battle Over New Zealand’s Constitution

Māni Dunlop’s Policy Spotlight is right about one thing: New Zealand is engaged in an increasingly important debate about its constitutional future. Where the article becomes problematic is in presenting that debate largely through the assumption that the country’s constitution should move towards a more deeply Treaty-based system, while giving comparatively little attention to the democratic case for retaining one Parliament, one law and equal citizenship.

There is certainly nothing illegitimate about debating constitutional reform. New Zealand has no single written constitution, and questions about the relationship between Parliament, the courts, the Treaty and fundamental rights deserve serious public discussion. Those are legitimate constitutional questions.

But something considerably bigger has emerged in recent years.

Pee Kay: The Maorification Virus - Part 2

A Satirical look at New Zealand Politics, 2017 – 2026

Can Democracy Be Saved

Though St Christo promised us remedies for the pathogen called the “Maorification” virus, would be found and administered in 2023, democracy’s ardent could see there was little doubt St Christo and Potaka the Provider, his specially selected agent, were actually and actively delivering more virus spores throughout the country.

Putting Potaka the Providor to great use, more of the virus was distributed via financial largess, empowerment and dispensed control. Agents of the state from public service, education, judiciary and academia willingly volunteered and were weaponised with the “Maorification” virus and Democracy was subjected to an ever wider attack!

Mike's Minute: Are we out of charismatic leaders?

John Key not only appeared on our show Friday, having put out a video reminding us all what is at stake this Saturday, he also appeared on a podcast suggesting Luxon has been the victim of a hit job by the left and the media.

I think he is right. I would also suggest the media is the left, and the left is the media.