The veteran politician was preferred prime minister for 9.1 per cent of respondents in the 3News/Reid Research poll.
His popularity had increased from a week ago, where he was sitting at 7.9 per cent, just behind Labour leader David Cunliffe, whose personal popularity remained unchanged at 12.3 per cent.
The same survey taken just before the 2011 election had Mr Peters on 3.8 per cent.
3News political editor Patrick Gower said Mr Peters' personal popularity was "simply powering away", and was reflective of some serious movement in the party vote polling.
"Considering he obviously doesn't have a realistic chance of becoming prime minister it's quite a result. Almost one in every 10 Kiwis want Winston to run the country.
"We've heard a lot from Peters this campaign, and with polling like this we're going to hear a lot more from him after the election."
National leader John Key's popularity dropped slightly from 45.3 to 44.1 per cent in the survey, which was conducted between September 9-15.
The poll, which surveyed 1000 people had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 per cent.
The full results would be released tonight.
