Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is hanging on as preferred prime minister in the latest political poll, taken from October 5 to 9.
But while Luxon is on 25% support in the 1News Verian Poll, that’s a three-point drop.
His rival, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, scored 15%, also down three points.
However, though the coalition government would win an election if it were called tomorrow based on this poll, it may have to look at how it is delivering its policies or convincing the public because 40% of the 1000 voters polled believe the economy is in worse shape than before the general election last year.
Those who thought the country was in better shape were 30% of respondents, and 26% said there was no difference while 4% didn’t know or preferred not to say.
In the governing coalition NZ First leader Winston Peters moved up a point as preferred prime minister to 6% while ACT leader David Seymour stayed at 4% Ibn the opposition parties, Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick came in at 6%, a fall of one point.
If the election were held tomorrow, the coalition government would win with 63 seats and head off a potential coalition of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori at 58. That would see National with 47 seats - down two. Labour would have 37, up three, the Greens would have 15, up one, Act would have 10 , losing one, NZ would have six – losing two and Te Pāti Māori would stay the same with six seats
National, on 37% of the party vote in the poll, was down one point on the last poll, which was held in August. Labour was also down one point on 29%, the Greens up one point on 12%, ACT up one point on 8% and New Zealand First on 5%, down one point.
Te Pāti Māori was on 4%, steady on the last poll. The Opportunities Party was up two points to 3% - not enough to enter Parliament without an electorate seat.
Undecided voters made up 9% of those polled, steady on the last poll.
The voters were polled by mobile phone (500) and online panels (500). The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1%-points at the 95% confidence level. Party support percentages have been rounded up or down to whole numbers, except those less than 4.5%, which are reported to one decimal place. The data has been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and education level. Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on party support.
