New Zealand's 28% tie leaves Opportunity as kingmaker
A 1News-Verian poll projects 10 seats for the party Prime Minister Luxon has ruled out as a partner, three weeks before the election.
National and Labour are tied at 28% of the vote in New Zealand, according to a 1News-Verian poll released Tuesday, Oct. 13. The general election is Nov. 7, three weeks away, and neither bloc would reach a majority without Opportunity, a small party that rises to 8%.
New Zealand elects its Parliament by mixed-member proportional representation: a party needs 5% of the vote or a district seat to win representation. Opportunity first cleared that threshold in August, at 5.3%, according to RNZ. In the previous 1News poll, which we covered on Sept. 30, it stood at 6%.
| Party | Vote (%) |
|---|---|
| National | 28 |
| Labour | 28 |
| Greens | 15 |
| ACT | 10 |
| NZ First | 10 |
| Opportunity | 8 |
| Te Pāti Māori | 0.4 |
On those numbers, 1News projects 58 seats for the right-wing bloc (National, NZ First and ACT) and 57 or 53 for the left (Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori), depending on how the Maori seats are counted. Opportunity would get 10 of 125, according to the NZ Herald. These are poll projections, not an official count.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, of National, and Labour leader Chris Hipkins are also tied as preferred prime minister, at 20% each. Hipkins gained two points in a week. Luxon told 1News it will be a "very, very tight" election; Hipkins said the undecided vote remains very high and that his party is focused on winning it.
The partner Luxon rules out
Hipkins has said his door is open to Opportunity. Luxon, by contrast, has repeatedly ruled out a deal with the party and with its leader, Qiulae Wong. On Thursday, RNZ headlined its live coverage with the position of Luxon's office: working with "whoever" does not extend to Opportunity. Only that headline could be read, not the full statement.
Opportunity's leader, Wong, announced that the party's first conversation will be with the one that wins the most votes, once the results are in on the night of Nov. 7. The poll surveyed just over a thousand voters and has a margin of error of 3.1 points; 12% remain undecided or back other parties.
