OPINION

Have you ever heard of doom scrolling or doom surfing? Wikipedia describes it as “the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online. In 2019, a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that doomscrolling can be linked to a decline in mental and physical health.”

Now there’s doom polling: the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading news sites waiting for the next poll to see if it is worse than the last one.

And that is what the Labour Party is doing right now, especially after a fifth poll. The Newshub/Reid Research poll delivered a body blow to Labour’s electoral chances.

National and ACT are on track to comfortably form a Government, according to our latest Newshub-Reid Research poll. 

Despite every effort to capture the public with pledges like free dental, Labour has tanked to numbers not seen since Andrew Little was Labour leader. 

Labour needs to break the glass and hit the panic button as this is its crisis poll. 

The party’s support has collapsed into the terrifying twenties at 26.8 percent. That is a catastrophic 5.5-point fall from our last poll. 

On the other side, National will be sounding the celebration siren. It is on 40.9 percent, up 4.3 points. 

The Greens are gathering steam. They are on 12.3 percent up 2.7 points. 

But ACT’s conga line of conspiracy candidates quitting has knocked it down. It’s fallen 2 points to 10.1 percent. 

Newshub

New Zealand First is still flirting with the 5 percent threshold at 4.6 percent. That is so, so close to a comeback. 

Meanwhile, Te Pati Maori is at 3.1 percent and the others are nowhere close to what’s needed to enter Parliament. 

Count the seats and the right-wash becomes clearer. The race is won at 61 seats. 

National’s 53 and ACT’s 13 get them there with some to spare. Together, they would have 66 seats.

Newshub

Unless you are a political tragic, you really don’t appreciate just how devastating it is to have five polls in the space of one week land that deliver bad news.

It is devastating to your caucus, devastating to your volunteers, devastating to your fundraising prospects and kneecaps any momentum that you may have had.

Five bad polls are the political equivalent of concrete shoes.

And that’s where Labour finds themselves now: heaved overboard, wearing concrete shoes, and with no ability to tread water. They are sinking inexorably towards a record loss.

And my, how we will celebrate!

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...