Cam Slater: Labour Slumps in Latest Poll

The latest Talbot Mills (formerly UMR) poll has been released and shows Labour and Chris Hipkins are experiencing a slump in their fortunes. The news isn’t all good for National, however, with them only rising by a single point, even as Labour slumps.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Labour might've lost its last best hope

I'm surprised that voters don’t really seem to like Chris Hipkins that much. 

We've spent quite a bit of time discussing Chris Luxon’s poor popularity, but take a look at last night’s poll: Hipkins’ is really poor as well.

His personal popularity in last night’s TVNZ poll: 25%.

Last week in the Newshub poll, only 23%.

That means three-quarters of us don’t want him as PM. 

That’s bad for an incumbent prime minister.

Kate Hawkesby: If you believe the polls, a lot of people are happy with the status quo

With all this pre-Budget talk I’m just not sure how invested we are in it - how much attention we’re paying it.

I mean we should be.

We’ve never been fiscally in such dire straits, we are laden down with debt, inflation is rampant, outlooks and optimism levels do not look flash.

So what the Government and the opposition want to do with our money should be something we’re laser focused on.

Kate Hawkesby: I don't feel this election will be as tight as some people think

So a new poll shows the Nats nudging past Labour to form a government with Act.

No Māori Party needed as Kingmaker, which has been the current narrative of course.. how close the race is, how powerful Te Pāti Māori could end up.

If this poll becomes a trend, not powerful at all. But I still think Luxon did the right thing ruling them out and not a moment too soon.

Bryce Edwards: The Gamechanger PM and polls

Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins has changed everything, and Labour is back in the game, surging ahead of National.

The poll results for 1News and Newshub were remarkably similar. But to comprehend their message it’s still best to average them out. Here’s the average party vote results:

Mike's Minute: Polls show the Govt got the hit it wanted, but issues still remain

There would have been a sigh of relief last night.

Not just from the Labour Party, but in the two newsrooms who put the polls out.

It's rare two polls come out on the same day, and last time it happened they didn’t match, and therefore you had no idea who was accurate or not.

Point of Order: Latest poll: Labour takes the plunge as Official Cash Rate again is lifted to 3.5%

As the Reserve Bank raises the Official Cash Rate again to 3.5%, the eighth successive increase,with more to come, in the effort to drive down inflation, the political mood has darkened, too.

A glance at the headlines point to the symptoms why this is happening: “Housing market still firmly in retreat”, “Consumer demand for personal loans spikes as households feel the pinch”