NZ election poll watch: right still leads left, but Opportunity could deny it a majority

Getty Images With the November 7 general election now just over two months away, and party campaigning about to start in earnest, political polls are coming into sharp relief.

Since the 2023 election, which saw a Labour majority government defeated by a right-wing coalition of National, NZ First and ACT, New Zealand’s mixed member proportional ( MMP ) system has settled into a broadly left-right split.

Based on the all-important party vote, the choice has been between a right-wing coalition of National, ACT and NZ First, or a left-wing coalition of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

But the rise in the polls of the centrist Opportunity Party has seen that dynamic begin to shift, suggesting the party could be in a kingmaker role after the election if current trends continue.

I’ve calculated a right-minus-left number for all polls since July using the Wikipedia polls table .

While Labour leads National in some polls, National’s allies (ACT and NZ First) have a greater combined vote than Labour’s allies (the Greens and Te Pāti Māori).

Te Pāti Māori is below the 5% threshold in national polls, but is expected to win at least one of the seven electorates reserved for those on the Māori roll, and thus return to parliament.

All other existing parliamentary parties are well above the 5% threshold.

The graph below shows whether the right or left coalition is ahead in all national polls conducted since July.

There have been five pollsters: Curia for the Taxpayers’ Union, Reid Research for RNZ, Verian for 1 News, Roy Morgan and Talbot Mills (TM in the graph).

Roy Morgan’s polls are conducted over a whole month, so I’m using the midpoint fieldwork date of the polls, not the endpoint.

The graph tracks all polls by the same pollster with a line connecting their polls.

This shows that in the Curia and Reid polls, there has been a swing to the right since their July polls, although the Talbot Mills poll has a small swing to the left.

As more polls are released in the coming months, they will fill out the currently empty space on the graph.