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National has gone up and the coalition is still in a position to form a government - but only by the slimmest margin - according to a new poll.
The Taxpayers' Union Curia poll was released on Friday.
It shows the Opportunity Party has broken through the 5% threshold needed to enter Parliament, with 6.1%.
But it would form part of the Opposition after National ruled out working with it last week.
National is up 0.5 points to 31% - making it the most popular party in Parliament - while Labour has taken a decent drop of 3.7 points to 27.8%.
The Greens are down ever so slightly to 10.1%, while New Zealand First also dropped, down 1.7 points to 9.1%.
ACT gained slightly to 7.3%, while Te Pati Maori has recorded its worst result since March 2023 with just 1.5%, down 1.9 points.
The coalition parties - National, ACT and New Zealand First - would be able to form a government with 61 seats if this poll was replicated on election day.
The Opposition - including the Opportunity Party - would have just 59 seats - not enough to govern.
On this poll result Labour would lose five seats.
In the preferred Prime Minister polling, National's Christopher Luxon is ahead on 23.2% - up 4.1 points - compared to Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who is down slightly to 19.8%.
The general election will be held on November 7.
The poll surveyed 1000 respondents between Saturday and Tuesday and has a margin of error +/- 3.1%.
Curia is a long-running and established pollster in New Zealand. In 2024 it resigned its membership from the Research Association New Zealand industry body.
Polls compare to the most recent poll by the same polling company, as different polls can use different methodologies. They are intended to track trends in voting preferences, showing a snapshot in time, rather than be a completely accurate predictor of the final election result.
Labour dismisses result, ACT predicts bump
Labour’s Hipkins brushed off the latest results on Friday, calling it a "rogue poll" and he doesn't focus on those.
"Labour is busy fighting for a country where everyone has the chance to build a better future. Too many Kiwis don't get that chance."
ACT leader David Seymour said he expected a bump following the announcement of the party's latest candidate, Paul Henry, who joined in mid-July.
He said there was a lag in polling.
"You hear it on the street, then you see it in the numbers, and I don't expect that these bumps happen immediately, but they generally do happen.
"Nothing happens the same week or even the next week. Generally, things happen over periods of months."
He applied the same assessment to queries around the impact of Luxon ruling out Opportunity.
"I'm not sure that something that somebody said last week is affecting the polls this week.
"I know it's frustrating if you want to nail a story and say here's a cause and effect. In my experience, the causes and effects are not quite as intimate as would be convenient for a narrative."
He maintained his party was in a "sound position".
Opportunity leader can feel momentum building
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said National should still consider her party as an option for a coalition partner, given the "antics" from NZ First leader Winston Peters this week.
"His ruling out he might come to regret as a bit of a mistake - but our door is always open and we're keen to chat."
Wong told RNZ she could feel the momentum building behind her party, after Friday’s poll showed them entering Parliament if an election was held today.
She said it was amazing to see the trend continue to go up as it has done over the last nine months.
Asked about the impact of Luxon ruling her party out, Wong told RNZ people did not necessarily believe he would not pick up the phone if he needed to.
His move was "indicative of the divisive tribal politics that started to take hold", she said, and he might regret it, but her door was always open.
"We can be a really strong coalition partner for them," she said, given policy areas including KiwiSaver, investment and innovation.
Wong said National wasn't in a "particularly strong position", even with the bump in polling.
"It would be in their interests to keep us as an option for a coalition partner", she said, rather than NZ First.
"Is that really the kind of party that they want to go into partnership again with in the next three years? We would be a much more stable and productive coalition partner than their current ones."
Wong said it was not clear if Opportunity's increased support was coming from Labour because other polls have "shown the opposite" - that the majority had come from National supporters.
"It's hard to necessarily say that all of our support is coming from one particular place."
People coming to Opportunity events and joining up as members were coming from "across the political spectrum", she said.
"There's a shared frustration - whether you've voted Labour or National or for one of the other minor parties - that we're just not seeing the solutions we need to move the country forward.
"And what's worse, all the current status quo parties are just playing into this left-right tribalism that is actually holding the country back."
