Election poll points to Opportunity being in kingmaker position unless National triggers overhang
The election campaign entered its final days with the final 1News-Verian poll showing the race too close to call, with the election dependent on a number of variables, including which side triggers the largest overhang and whether Opportunity makes it into Parliament.
The poll had National on 30%, up one point; Labour on 29%, up two points; the Greens on 16%, up a point; and Act and New Zealand First down two points each, on 10% and 8% respectively.
Opportunity was on 6%, and Te Pāti Māori was on 0.4%, up 0.3 points.
Those numbers would give 36 seats to National, 12 seats to Act and 10 to NZ First, giving the coalition 58 seats.
Labour would have 35 seats, the Greens would have 20 seats and Opportunity would have seven.
Te Pāti Māori’s seat total would depend on how many electorates it won. It is currently expected to win three to five seats, triggering an overhang on the left.
Those numbers would put Opportunity in the kingmaker position unless National triggers an overhang on the right, which some campaigners are advocating for.
National leader Christopher Luxon was down a point to 23% as preferred Prime Minister, while Labour leader Chris Hipkins was up a point to 19%.
Today was another busy day of campaigning, with Luxon touring the top of the South Island before making his final stop in Wellington of the campaign, where he watched the Melbourne Cup.
On the campaign trail, Luxon refused to be drawn on the fact that police confirmed they were investigating businessman Harry Mowbray’s vote-splitting campaign after it was referred by the Electoral Commission.
Mowbray told the Post he believed the referral was due to his tardiness in responding to the Electoral Commission after he was contacted by the body about his campaign website.
The National Party itself complained to the Electoral Commission over the campaign, which a spokesman said was a “deliberate attempt to confuse voters”.
“I’ve nothing further to say and frankly now that it’s a matter before the police, I’ll leave it there,” Luxon said this morning.
Luxon will leave Wellington on Wednesday morning for the final push of the campaign, a bus tour up the North Island finishing in Auckland the night before polling day.
Te Pāti Māori may be the next group to find itself in trouble with the Electoral Commission over ads encouraging voters to split their vote. Any ads that tell people to vote for a party require the permission of that party. On Tuesday evening, the Labour Party confirmed that it had not given Te Pāti Māori permission to run an ad on its website telling its supporters to give their party vote to Labour or the Greens, potentially putting the party’s ads in breach of electoral law. Te Pāti Māori and the Greens have also been approached for comment.
Hipkins began the day with a round of interviews in Auckland before heading south to Hamilton. He’ll be in the Wellington region on Wednesday, campaigning with Sophie Handford in Kāpiti, one of the tight electorate races where Labour has begun running ads urging Green voters to give their candidate vote to Labour to avoid inadvertently triggering a National Party overhang.
Labour began rolling out the ads on Tuesday in a number of tight electorates.
“Don’t let Luxon sneak back in,” the ad says.
“Every vote for the Green Party candidate will help National get back in. Voting Labour is the only way to change the Government.”
On Tuesday, Hipkins continued to take a hard line on allegations from National that he would roll over and introduce taxes proposed by the Greens, Opportunity, and Te Pāti Māori.
Asked whether he would resign rather than introduce new taxes beyond Labour’s capital gains tax, Hipkins replied “yes”.
“[A] capital gains tax is the only new tax that Labour will support. Full stop, end of story,” he added.
Peters campaigned in Auckland, doing a mall walkabout. He will remain in Auckland on Wednesday. The Greens were also campaigning in Auckland, where co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said she would want to see an investigation launched if a government was elected through an engineered parliamentary overhang.
Seymour continued his bus tour up the North Island, campaigning predominantly on health. This continues on Wednesday.
Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong was in Christchurch and will be campaigning in Wellington on Wednesday.
Wong continued to face constitutional questions about the power of her party’s most significant donor, who also sits on the party’s board.
Alan “AJ” Wilderland told the Herald last week that Labour and the Greens might be the easier parties to work with in government and that NZ First might be the most difficult, remarks that were interpreted as suggesting Opportunity would likely go into government with the left bloc after the election.
Wong said the remarks were “his view” and added that he was “not part of our negotiation team going into coalition negotiations”.
However, she confirmed that the party’s board, which includes Wilderland, does have the final sign-off on any coalition deal.
The 1News-Verian poll was conducted between October 29 and November 2 and polled 1000 eligible voters by phone and online panel. The maximum sampling error was about ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.