The results would give the coalition parties 61 seats, compared to the opposition parties' 59 seats. Photo: RNZ
The latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll has the coalition just scraping back into power, with gains for the Greens but Labour and New Zealand First down.
Labour remained the most popular party in December despite a 1.7-point drop, while a slight dip for National saw the gap between the two main parties narrow to less than 2 points.
The Greens gained about as much as Labour dropped, and NZ First dropped 1 percentage point.
- Labour: 31.6 percent, down 1.7 points (41 seats)
- National: 30 percent, down 0.2 (39 seats)
- Greens: 10.8 percent, up 1.6 (14 seats)
- ACT: 8.9 percent, up 0.3 (11 seats)
- NZ First: 8.1 percent, down 1 (11 seats)
- Te Pāti Māori: 3.1 percent, down 0.2 (4 seats)
The results would give the coalition parties 61 seats, enough to form a government, compared to the opposition parties' 59 seats.
For parties outside Parliament, NZ Outdoors and Freedom was on 1.0 percent (-0.5 points), TOP was on 1.6 percent (+0.4 points), New Conservatives were on 1.0 percent (-0.2 points), and Vision NZ was on 0.3 percent (-0.1 points) - a 1.3-point gain between the four parties.
The TPU-Curia poll assumes no overhang for National and Te Pāti Māori, but that Te Pāti Māori would retain at least one electorate seat.
Christopher Luxon, Chris Hipkins and David Seymour all dropped in both the preferred prime minister stakes and net favourability.
Preferred prime minister:
- Christopher Luxon: 19.7 percent - down 1.1 points
- Chris Hipkins: 17.8 percent - down 2.8
- Winston Peters: 8.5 percent, steady
- Chlöe Swarbrick: 7.6 percent, up 3.5
- David Seymour: 6 percent, down 1.7
Net favourability, which ranks leaders based on how popular versus how unpopular they are rather than relying on rankings, had Hipkins down 5 points to -7 percent, Luxon down 3 points to -13, Peters down 4 points to -2, and Seymour down 13 points to -24 percent.
The gain for parties outside Parliament combined with the favourability metrics may indicate a general public dissatisfaction with politicians for December.
The poll surveyed 1000 eligible voters and was weighted for demographics, with a margin of error of 3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval. It was conducted between 3 and 7 December.
Curia is a long-running and established pollster in New Zealand. It recently resigned its membership from the Research Association New Zealand (RANZ) industry body.
Polls compare to the most recent poll by the same polling company, as different polls can use different methologies. They are intended to track trends in voting preferences, showing a snapshot in time, rather than be a completely accurate predictor of the final election result.
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