New Zealand’s right bloc will win election for first time since 2020

New polling shows that the right bloc of New Zealand would still win an election held tomorrow for the Jacinda Ardern-led Labour party for the first time in almost two years.

A Kantar One News Poll released on Tuesday night found that Labour had halted its steady decline in popularity, for the first time since December 2020 in Kantar polling, the party had a slight increase in support, up 1% to 34% of the total vote. The left would not be able to form a government, even though it would be combined with the likely coalition partners the Green party, on 9% and the M ori party, on 2%.

The libertarian act party, which is made up of the centre-right National Party, on 37%, and the centre-right National Party, on 9%, could form a government without needing additional coalition partners.

The August poll by Roy Morgan found that support for Labour had risen slightly after a year of trending downward, to 35%, neck in neck with National 35.5%.

The years-long downward trend is partly due to the unusual heights that Ardern's Labour had reached. During the Covid epidemic, Labour gained a lot of popularity when New Zealanders were impressed with its crisis leadership. In December 2020 it polled at 53%, a very unusual result for a single party in New Zealand's coalition-based electoral politics.

Since then, the popularity of the party has declined slowly, and more dramatically as the cost of living and petrol prices spiked in the last year, and after the opposition National party appeared to end its years of internal chaos with the selection of a new leader.

According to TVNZ, Ardern appeared to attribute the rise in support to the government scrapping the last of the Covid protections earlier this month. There was no doubt these have been tough times, but I am really proud of the way we have come through it, and I am also really optimistic about the future she said.

She said on the end of most Covid 19 protection measures, you have seen very significant changes that have been made, only a few weeks ago, that give cause for optimism in the future. We have certainty for the first time in three years coming into summer, for instance. The country's economic outlook and cost of living are likely to be a major factor in the outcome with the next election due to take place sometime next year. The incumbent government s polling has dropped as New Zealanders have felt the pinch from high inflation levels of 7.3% and rents increase 5% year-on-year.

The opposition leader, Christopher Luxon, told TVNZ that Kiwis are really hurting. They are worried about a cost-of-living crisis, they worry about a rise in crime, and they re worried about a healthcare system that is falling apart on them, he said.

Ardern remains ahead of Luxon in the preferred prime minister stakes, polling at 30% compared to Luxon's 21%.