Election 2026: Latest poll has National so low it stretches credibility. What does the trend show?
If this morning’s RNZ-Reid Research poll is to be believed, voters are less enamoured with National now than they were in 2020, when Labour won a historic majority.
The poll has National on 24.8%, almost 6 percentage points behind Labour (30.6%).
It’s not surprising that National has dismissed it.
It was conducted over a similar period to this week’s 1News-Verian poll, which had National on 28.9%, 1.6 percentage points ahead of Labour.
Both canvassed 1000 eligible voters, though Reid Research used online panels, while Verian uses both phone calls and online.
Those Reid Research panels seem to favour Labour. Its previous poll, at the end of September, had Labour 5 percentage points up on National when most other polls had them neck and neck.
It also had Labour’s advantage at 3.1 points in August, 5.3 points in July, 4.8 points in March, and 3.1 points in January.
So what can we take from the RNZ-Reid Research poll, if anything?
The trend is good news for Act, which rose 1.1 points since the end of September, and for Opportunity, which was 1.7 points higher.
That upward direction for Act is mirrored in the 1News-Verian poll over the same period, but not for Opportunity, which barely moved (from 6% to 6.3%).
The trend for the other parties in the RNZ-Reid Research numbers follows other polls in showing how little the dial has shifted during the campaign.
That includes for Labour, which will find stability encouraging considering the Mongrel Mob focus over the polling period.
Labour will also be pleased to be in the 30s in this morning’s result (30.6%), and able to form a government with the Greens (14.5%) and Opportunity (7.2%).
The caution for Labour is not only the grain of salt it should take with the Reid Research numbers.
In 2023, Labour’s election night result was lower than Labour’s support in all of the major polls’ final pre-election numbers.
The exception was Roy Morgan, which appears to be the counter to Reid Research in that it tends to favour National. Roy Morgan has National ahead of Labour by an average of 7 points since July.
The Herald, as a general rule, has refrained from using Roy Morgan’s political polling in any of its reporting for years.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.