Poll of Polls: Probability of re-elected coalition falls below 50%
The likelihood of the three coalition Government parties being re-elected continues to slide, according to the latest Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls.
The latest model, run after yesterday’s RNZ Reid Research poll, shows the probability of National, Act and New Zealand First winning a second term is 48.2%.
It’s the first time the three-party coalition’s chances have dipped below 50%. When the first Poll of Polls model was run in May, the probability was 88.3%.
However, the likelihood of the Opposition parties – Labour, the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori – forming a government has also suffered, with the probability reduced to 1.4%.
It comes as a surging Opportunity Party has registered above 5% in several mainstream public polls. The Poll of Polls predicts Opportunity has a 91.8% probability of achieving the 5% threshold needed to enter Parliament without winning an electorate.
The model has National polling as the largest party at 29.9% with Labour close behind on 29.2%.
NZ First held the next largest share of support with 12.5%, the Greens following on 10.4%, Opportunity on 7.3%, Act on 7.2% and Te Pāti Māori on 2.3%.
Opportunity’s growing support has changed potential governing arrangements after November 7.
Adding Opportunity to the coalition parties produces a 97.5% probability of forming a government.
However, that is unlikely given National and New Zealand First have ruled out working with Opportunity in government, while Act has been more open to it.
Combining Opportunity with the opposition parties drastically increases the left bloc’s chances to 40.8%. Labour leader Chris Hipkins this month said his party was open to working with Opportunity in government.
Te Pāti Māori recently announced it was campaigning solely for the candidate vote, hoping to repeat its success in the 2023 election when it won six of the seven Māori seats.
The model predicted Labour’s chances of being able to form a government without Te Pāti Māori, but with the Greens and Opportunity, had a 16.7% probability.
The NZ Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls uses data from public polls and other private or less frequent polls and inputs it into a computer model using polling data going back to 2014.
It uses this data to run 4000 election simulations to form probabilities of various election outcomes.
The calculations assume Te Pāti Māori wins at least one electorate and there are no overhangs.
The model weights polls depending on their historical performance.
The simulations are crunched to form probabilities of a party’s performance on election day, and potential combinations of parties with the numbers to form a Government.
Adam Pearse is the deputy political editor in the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.