Two polls released on Wednesday 15 September confirm my expectations on the impact a second Level 4 lockdown will have on Labour’s popularity. A month ago in ‘Lockdown Just in Time!’ I reviewed the support of incumbent governments during elections post-Covid vs. pre-Covid, finding that governments were more than twice as likely to remain in power post-Covid than before the pandemic. This data led to me predict that a second Level 4 lockdown in New Zealand would provide a boost in support for Labour just as the first lockdown did.
A UMR poll for private non-Labour Party clients, leaked to the media, shows Labour on 45%, National 26%, Act 13%, Greens 6%, NZ First 4% and the Maori Party 2%. Labour/Greens is up 1% on the UMR poll of August 16th while National/Act is down 2%.
A Curia poll commissioned by the Taxpayer’s Union paints an even bleaker picture for the centre-right with Labour on 45.8%, National 21.3%, Act 14.9%, Greens 9.6%, NZ First 2.7% and the Maori Party 1.2%. I haven’t seen any Curia polling data since a poll was leaked in April 2020 so it isn’t possible to determine any trend in this poll, nor measure any unique behavioural biases in its results. However, that is devastating for the leadership of Judith Collins, who has weathered more apparently damaging press coverage in the past couple of weeks.
The graphs below included the seven polls featured in the previous article with a Roy Morgan on August 30 being the first post-Delta poll, followed by the UMR and Curia polls released Wednesday. While the notoriously erratic Roy Morgan poll shows Labour’s support at a lower level than the UMR poll prior, the Labour/Greens total support grew over that of National/Act.
What do these polls mean for…
The Maori Party
Since May, the Maori Party has bobbed around between 1.5% and 2.5%, always confident of holding their existing two seats though increasingly looking likely to grab a third. Nationwide polls don’t paint a true picture of the party’s prospects because their racist racial seat voting base makes them more of an old school FPP party than any other in Parliament. Polls in any of the seven Maori electorates are rare, their sample size generally just 500 and the margin of error in excess of 5%.
The Maori Party’s appeal, due to dependence on racial seats for survival, is evidently to those who think reserved racial representation is a good thing, i.e. racists. The Maori Party is doing a pretty good job of playing to their base and it appears increasingly likely to me that they will achieve at least one more electorate seat, though probably at the expense of any list candidate or co-Leader list MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
The petition they launched this week calling on Parliament to legislate changing the name of the country to Aotearoa, and “return” every place name to its Te Reo Maori name will help solidify their racist base. It will also help a certain anti-Maori Maori politician to rebuild his support; a win-win for the Maori Party and New Zealand First.
New Zealand First
Winston Peters has the best ‘effort to poll result’ ratio of any politician this term. From election day in 2020 to June this year, he did absolutely nothing publicly. Then New Zealand First held their first post-election annual conference and the party has not dipped below 2% since the end of July Roy Morgan poll.
Following the Maori Party’s launch of their petition to rename New Zealand, Winston’s dormant Twitter account crackled into life with an attack on “left-wing radical bulldust.” That is all it has taken for New Zealand First to poll between 2.5% and 4.4% since August 1st.
I guess the most effective tactic to deliver three more years of Winston is to take a three year break from Winston. He returned from the wilderness in 2011 and I wouldn’t rule him out from repeating the trick in 2023. However, as always New Zealand First’s political fortunes are inescapably entwined with Peters’s fortunes. The party won’t outlast its only leader.
The Greens
Since the Greens exited The Alliance in the first MMP Parliament, the Greens have been a permanent fixture in the House. They’re second only to Act as the longest continually represented minor party in Parliament. They survived Metiria Turei shooting herself in the foot in 2017, they appear relatively stable from an outsider’s perspective and ill-disciplined idiots such as Ricardo Menendez-March and Golriz Ghahraman have been surprisingly quiet as of late. While their polling has now been below Act’s in every poll since early June, their support base is solid, ideologically glued to the party and a crucial buffer against National/Act for when Labour needs a coalition partner in 2023.
There is a strong correlation between Labour and the Greens’ polling numbers, with one rising as the other falls. Combined with the pandemic hysteria fuelling floating voters’ swing back leftward, the Greens solid base will ensure a third term for Labour.
Act
With no poll showing less than double-digit support for Act since early July, the party seems incapable of going wrong. Nobody in the history of the Act party, especially members since 2011, could ever have imagined such a large and sustained surge in support for David Seymour and the nine additional Act MPs.
Undeniably, some of this growth has been at the expense of National, following a similar pattern to the 1999 and 2002 elections. Deservedly so due to the brilliant fronting of Act by David Seymour and the miserable catastrophe of National which squandered its position as the largest opposition party in New Zealand political history from 2017 to 2020.
I believe Act’s cap in support is around 15% of the electorate. Despite their incredibly popular leader (who outperforms National’s leader in preferred Prime Minister polls), I don’t think Act will become more popular than National in the 2023 election or in any mainstream poll, but being an effective opposition party will continue to expand Act’s support. That growth will hold, increasing their number of MPs in 2023.
Labour
Despite being the most incompetent government I can recall in my entire life, Jacinda Ardern’s unfathomable star power, dominance of the ‘Podium of Truth’ and ability to paralyse the economy (as opposed to implementing any of their actual policies) almost guarantees Labour will coast through to a third term. As Act’s star grew brighter and National stabilised in the late 20s, I dared hope New Zealand may have its first two-term government since 1990, but the arrival of the Delta variant and the subsequent shutdown of the country has dashed those hopes.
Labour’s support and the combined support of Labour/Greens has returned to the upward trajectory of 2020. It should be sufficient to minimise the impact of any softening in support from late next year.
National
I don’t like predicting leadership spills. It becomes self-fulfilling when the mainstream media make these predictions. Given virtually every parliamentary party leader eventually gets rolled, if you predict the demise of a leader long enough, you’ll be right.
Unfortunately, even I think Judith Collins’s leadership is on its last legs which is a pity. There has been a dearth of major political polls in recent months with just one Reid Research poll and no Colmar Brunton polls since May 2021. However, today’s Curia poll marks the third result at 25% or lower since a UMR poll in July. National hasn’t dropped lower than 27% in Colmar Brunton or Reid Research but I suspect if the party’s polling fails to recover from the 28.7% recorded in the Reid Research poll of August 1, someone in National’s caucus will begin running the numbers on a challenge.
Whether that person is suitable and capable of bringing National’s support back is a completely different issue. That didn’t stop Todd Muller getting the leadership for two months. Former leader Simon Bridges is still one of the names mentioned most often which clearly illustrates National’s problem. I also struggle to think of anyone more suited than either Collins or Bridges at this time.
New Zealand
As Delta continues to fuel the public appetite for maintaining an impregnable ‘Fortress New Zealand,’ Labour’s hold on the government benches will also appear inviolable. National could elect its fourth leader within twelve months, Act could inspire confidence in more voters that they are the genuine leaders of the opposition but little will make a dent in Labour’s vote as long as New Zealanders remain terrified of Delta.