New Zealand’s governing National Party and opposition Labour Party are close in an opinion poll released on 3 November, days before the country’s general election on 7 November. National was on 30 per cent and Labour on 29 per cent, with both gaining ground compared with the previous week’s survey by the same firm.
National’s figure was up one percentage point, while Labour’s was up two. The Greens rose one point to 16 per cent. ACT and New Zealand First, National’s partners in the current government, each fell two points, to 10 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.
Opportunity was unchanged at 6 per cent, while Te Pāti Māori was on 0.4 per cent. Most figures were rounded to whole numbers: before rounding, National was on 29.5 per cent and Labour on 28.8 per cent. The narrow gap should not be treated as a certain indication of the result on election day.
How the survey was conducted
The poll questioned 1,006 eligible voters from 29 October to 2 November. Of those, 500 were contacted by mobile phone and 506 through online panels. The results were weighted for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and education.
Nine per cent of respondents were undecided. Undecided voters, non-voters and people who declined to answer were excluded from the party-support figures. The stated maximum sampling error was approximately 3.1 percentage points at the 95 per cent confidence level; that figure does not capture every possible source of polling error.
Why the smaller parties matter
New Zealand uses a mixed-member proportional voting system. Each voter has a party vote, which largely determines the overall number of seats each party receives, and an electorate vote for a local representative. Electorate winners take seats in Parliament, with remaining places filled from party lists.
A party generally needs at least 5 per cent of the party vote or an electorate seat to qualify for a share of the seats. Parties often need to negotiate with one another to form a government, so the position of smaller parties can matter even when neither of the two largest parties is close to an outright majority.
One seat model based on the 3 November poll assumed Te Pāti Māori won one electorate seat. It included no extra seat for Mariameno Kapa-Kingi or a National overhang. In a 121-seat Parliament, National would have 36 seats, ACT 12 and New Zealand First 10, giving the current governing parties 58 together. Labour would have 35, the Greens 20 and Te Pāti Māori one, making 56 for that group.
Opportunity would have seven seats in that model, and 61 would be needed for a majority. Adding those seven seats to the National-led group would give 65, while adding them to the Labour-led group would give 63. Those are arithmetic scenarios based on the poll and the stated electorate assumption, not agreements or election results.
National leader Christopher Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity. The smaller party has said it remains open to talks with National. The calculations alone do not establish which parties would reach agreements after the vote.
A second model assumed Te Pāti Māori won four seats and that Kapa-Kingi retained Te Tai Tokerau, again without an additional National overhang. Parliament would then have 125 seats, with 63 needed for a majority. Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Kapa-Kingi would have 60 seats between them under that scenario; adding Opportunity’s seven would give them 67.
There is another complication. If a party wins more electorate seats than its party-vote share would otherwise entitle it to, it keeps those seats and Parliament can expand. National won 43 electorate seats in the 2023 general election and a further seat in a delayed vote in Port Waikato the following month. The poll’s party-vote figure would entitle National to 36 seats before any such extra seats. The survey does not establish how many electorates National will win this time.
Earlier in the campaign, the governing parties disagreed over an advertisement promoting a split between the two votes. ACT and New Zealand First approved the advertisement, which promoted National electorate candidates alongside party votes for the smaller parties. The electorates of Epsom and Tāmaki were exceptions to the proposed strategy. National did not support the campaign. The poll does not establish what effect, if any, the advertisement had on voters.
Voting is already under way
In a separate question about preferred prime minister, Christopher Luxon was on 23 per cent and Chris Hipkins on 19 per cent. Those figures answer a different question from the party-vote poll and should not be added to the parties’ support shares.
An informal count recorded 1,074,416 advance votes through 2 November, excluding overseas votes. The daily figures may change. Advance voting began on 26 October and ends on 6 November.
Polling places are due to close at 7pm local time on Saturday 7 November, after which preliminary results will be released progressively. Those early totals do not include special votes, including overseas votes. The official result is scheduled for 27 November, following further checks and counting.
