He is suffering a metaphorical death by a thousand cuts, his every utterance and action raising questions as to whether his time as National Party leader, and as prime minister, is shortly about to end.
Each time a new poll emerges another round of questions about Mr Luxon’s future are asked, his senior MPs are confronted by reporters at airports or after emerging from taxis at Parliament to ask if they do, indeed, have confidence in Christopher Luxon as leader.
Mr Luxon can claim, with some justification, that there is more than a hint of media-driven, self-fulfilling prophecy about all this.
Having commissioned the polls, the numbers must have an accompanying story, and all too often it centres on the performance of the leader. One negative poll, and the accompanying negative story, fuels the fire for the next poll, and the next story.
But if, as Mr Luxon likes to say, he gets that, then he is showing little ability to turn such comprehension of the issues into a compelling argument for his administration.
His one big chance to reshape his government and reassert his authority, the recent Cabinet reshuffle, proved too timid to achieve either of those goals.
The clamour for Mr Luxon’s resignation is becoming louder and louder, and if it has not so already, it may drown out any positive news National or the government have to share.
Things are not universally negative. A free trade agreement with India has come a step closer with the legal verification of the paperwork by each country, and a pragmatic and well-communicated plan has been put in place to manage the ongoing fuel crisis.
And while not all aspects of RMA reform are universally welcomed, the enormous work of overhauling a problematic piece of law is well under way.
But Mr Luxon’s usually chipper assertion that economic recovery is on its way are not squaring with the daily reality of trying to afford groceries, let alone the fuel to drive to the supermarket.
Act New Zealand leader David Seymour, whose own party is suffering its own lull in the polls, argued on Sunday that three of four recent polls would have returned a centre right government so things were not all that bad on his side of the House.
To a degree he is correct: polls at this point in an electoral cycle can be random and scattershot and perhaps not that much should be read into them.
But having said that, National’s polling as a party and Mr Luxon’s personal popularity rating have been stubbornly low for many months now. MPs on the party list or in marginal seats will be pondering their futures — and those people number more than the ‘‘probably five’’ moaning MPs Mr Luxon suggested were fuelling speculation about his leadership.
On Friday Mr Luxon was forced to state, many times, that he had the full support of his caucus. By yesterday that full support was diluted by a few ‘‘moaning and frustrated’’ MPs . . . who knows how much further it might dwindle once his caucus are back in town and talking to each other.
Changing party leader this close to an election seldom ends well for the party concerned: voters recognise a Hail Mary play when they see one.
What National MPs have to weigh up is whether Mr Luxon is fast becoming the equivalent of a lame duck president, seeing out his term but lacking the authority or ability to effect meaningful change. Would a change in leadership actually change anything, or would what is potentially becoming only a semblance of party unity serve National better?
But what is doing National no favours at all is the sense of inertia about Mr Luxon’s leadership. If he has no intention of resigning, and that is certainly what it looks like, then he may need to force those caucus malcontents to put up or shut up.
Voters can also spot an ill-disciplined, divided caucus from a mile off, and Mr Luxon is right on this point too. They do not like MPs who are fighting each other rather than fighting for them.
However, the more Mr Luxon is required to assert that he has the full support of his caucus, the less likely that people are going to believe him.
