Election 2026: The Opportunity Party flirts with oblivion in latest poll
A new poll showed Opportunity’s support dropping again, coming close to missing out on Parliament altogether.
The latest 1News-Verian Poll had the party on 6%, down one point, having fallen two points in the last two polls. Parties need to poll 5% or win an electorate to make it into Parliament.
The National Party fell three points to 29%, down from the party’s breakaway result in last week’s poll.
Labour was steady on 27%, the Greens fell a point to 15%, while Act was up one point to 12% – its best result in this poll this term.
New Zealand First was up 2 points to 10% and Te Pāti Māori fell 0.6 points to 0.1%, although the party is not campaigning for the party vote.
Going by the party vote alone, those results would give National 34 seats, Act 15 seats and NZ First 12 seats – a total of 61.
However, Te Pāti Māori is attempting to engineer an overhang in Parliament, which would increase the size of Parliament.
If Te Pāti Māori wins four electorates and the Te Tai Tokerau Party wins one, Labour and the Greens’ totals of 33 and 18 seats respectively would give the left bloc 56 seats.
Opportunity’s eight seats would give the party the balance of power and the ability to make either the left or right bloc the Government.
If Te Pāti Māori wins just one seat, the right bloc could govern without Opportunity.
The numbers do not include any assumptions about the likelihood or scale of a right-wing overhang, which is possible. National is likely to lose some of its seats, but it might not lose seats in proportion with the decline in its party vote, which would lead to an overhang of some description on the right.
This would make it easier for the right to govern.
National leader Christopher Luxon was up four points to 24% in the preferred Prime Minister stakes, his best performance in two years.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins was up a point 18%. Winston Peters was down one point to 7%, level with Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. Act leader David Seymour was on 6%.
The poll was taken between October 21 and October 25. The poll had 1000 responses, half from mobile phones and half from an online panel. The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1%-points at the 95% confidence level.