Discussion
The latest Roy Morgan poll (29 June – 26 Jul 2026) is fascinating;
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/10281-nz-national-voting-intention-july-2026
Labour and Green numbers are unchanged from where they were in the last Roy Morgan. So one way to interpret it is Winston First and ACT losing votes to National (+1%), and particularly Opportunity, at 8% in this poll! Although we can't really draw any firm conclusions from comparing these 2 snapshots.
(1/2)
@strypey The political tragics don't trust Roy Morgan, and 25% for Labour seems very skewed, but the next of the other major pollsters will be very interesting!
@abartlet
> The political tragics
Guilty as charged ; )
> don't trust Roy Morgan
They are consistently the outlier when you compare their polls to the 5 other pollsters in the table here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_New_Zealand_general_election
But comparisons between pollsters are about as meaningful as individual polls. Again, what's more interesting to me is overall trends, and in particular, trends across various polls by the same pollster.
What more interesting is the trend across polls. Before this one, Opportunity's average poll result since Budget Day was sitting around 4.3%. If you include a few earlier results, the average is even lower. But when you add that 8% from the latest Roy Morgan to the post-Budget average, it goes up to 4.8%.
If TOP can sustain this trend until Polling Day, they'll be in the next Parliament. If they regularly poll at 6-8% or higher, the chances of that get much higher.
(2/2)
2 more polls released since the Roy Morgan I mentioned last week. The Curia poll for the Taxpayers' Union put the Opportunity party at a more modest 6.1%. But the Verian poll for One News put them at 8%, same as the RM result. The party's average result since the Budget is now 5.2%.
Intriguingly, being ruled out by CLuxon seems to have only boosted their support. Which suggests a lot of a pro-business people who voted for the NatACTs in 2023 want a change
(1/?)
It's still almost 3 months until Polling Day. But unless Opportunity blot their copybook - which given their performance so far seems unlikely - or another party (eg Labour) distinguishes themselves enough to draw votes away from them, they'll have MPs after this election.
Since CLuxon's self-punching pronouncement though, and Hipkins ruling out the National Front ... er ... Winston First, the news media have placed TOP in the 'left bloc'. And the 2 blocs are still neck and neck.
(2/?)
But the thing to remember about polls is that they're snapshots. What matters is the trend across polls.
If you look at a line graph of poll results since 2023, NatACT First have been slowly but surely bleeding support. While Opportunity, the Greens, and even Labour, have been steadily gaining on them. If this trend continues, the coalition are toast.
(3/?)
@strypey Perfectly happy for a bunch right wing (esp. NZF) voters to switch to Opportunity. Would be less pleased to see left wing voters go that way.
@Salty
> Perfectly happy for a bunch right wing (esp. NZF) voters to switch to Opportunity. Would be less pleased to see left wing voters go that way
Of course all voters fit into one of these 2 neat categories. This is why CLuxon is right that we don't need MMP; 2 big parties are all the nuance we need, right? 😋
Outside of the choir, most people are not so easy to pigeonhole.
@strypey With the amount of money rich listers are pouring into it, it'd be more of a surprise if it didn't get a lift in the polls.
@WainuiTrailerTrash
> With the amount of money rich listers are pouring into it, it'd be more of a surprise if it didn't get a lift in the polls
Sure, and the Greens got over 5% in 1999 purely because of donations made by Lisa Err (founder of Lisa's Hummus) and other "rich listers". Absolutely nothing to do with people liking their policies or their principled, nonpartisan approach to electoral politics : P
Seriously, how does a theory that funding = polling explain Nats' and ACT's declines?
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