National extends lead over Labour in latest poll

The latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll has National extendng its lead over Labour, rising one point on last month’s poll to 39 percent, while Labour fell two points to 33 percent.

Those results are the equal highest for National and the equal lowest for Labour since the poll began in April last year.

The Act Party was steady on 10 percent and the Green were steady on 8 percent.

Te Pāti Māori and NZ First were on 3.5 percent and 2.9 percent respectively.

Those numbers would give National 51 seats and Act 13 - enough to form a Government.

Labour would lose 22 seats, falling to 42, while the Greens would have 10. Te Pāti Māori would get 4 seats provided it won an electorate seat.

National leader Christopher Luxon has also closed the favourability gap with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern’s net favourability fell to 3 percent, down from 8 percent - a record low for her in the poll. Luxon is both less liked and less disliked than Ardern. He rose five points for a net favourability of 2 percent.

The pollster said that despite the two leaders’ favourability narrowing, undecided voters still clearly preferred Ardern.

Undecided voters gave Ardern a positive net favourability of 1, compared with Luxon who was on negative 29 percent.

Luxon also enjoyed a jump in the preferred prime minister poll, rising 5.2 percent to 26.3 percent. However, Ardern maintained a strong lead at 35.3 percent, down just 0.3 percent.

The poll was taken between Thursday and Tuesday, December 1-6. The sample size was 1000 eligible New Zealand voters: 600 by phone and 400 by online panel.

The maximum sampling error (for a result of 50 percent) is +/- 3.1 percent, at the 95 percent confidence level.

The poll tracks closely with a Newshub-Reid Research and a 1 News-Kantar Pol in recent weeks.

National was on 38 percent, up 1 point, Labour was on 33 percent, down 1 point. Act was on 11 percent, up 2 points and the Green Party was steady on 9.

Luxon told TVNZ the result showed people wanted a “Government that gets things done”.

Speaking on that earlier poll Ardern said: ”We are as a country going through some very particular issues that rightly and understandably are of interest to voters”.

The Newshub-Reid Research Poll from November had Labour at 32.3 percent, and National on 40.7 percent. Act was on 10 percent and the Greens were on 9.5 percent.