National Falls Three Points as Labour Holds at 27 in New Zealand Poll

National Party support dropped three percentage points to 29 in the latest 1News-Verian poll, while Labour held steady at 27. The shift narrows the gap between the two major parties to two points, a change from last week’s reading where National led by five points.

The governing coalition retains a majority under the party vote. National would secure 34 seats, Act 15, and New Zealand First 12, totaling 61 seats. Act rose one point to 12 and New Zealand First climbed two points to 10. The Green Party fell one point to 15, and Opportunity slid to 6.

Te Pāti Māori recorded its lowest result in the poll at 0.1. The party is running a candidate-only campaign and seeking an overhang, a mechanism that adds seats to Parliament if a party wins more electorates than its party vote entitles it to. This strategy aims to increase the size of the House of Representatives.

If Te Pāti Māori wins four electorates and the Te Tai Tokerau Party wins one, the left bloc would hold 56 seats. Labour would account for 33 of those and the Greens for 18. In that scenario, Opportunity’s eight seats would determine which side forms the government. If Te Pāti Māori wins only one seat, the right bloc could govern without requiring Opportunity’s support.

Preferred prime minister rankings show Christopher Luxon surging to 24, up four points from the previous week. Chris Hipkins trails at 18. The poll fielded 1003 eligible voters between October 15 and October 19, 2026. Data collection used 500 mobile phone interviews and 503 online panel responses. The maximum sampling error is approximately 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

Results were weighted to match Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, region, ethnicity, and education. Party support figures are rounded to whole numbers, except for values below 4.5 percent. Undecided voters, non-voters, and those who declined to answer were excluded from the party support data. The survey provides a snapshot of current support rather than a prediction of the final election outcome.