At under 5% in the preferred PM stakes, the National leader’s response to the Covid crisis is going to the talk of his caucus, writes Toby Manhire. The maxim goes that there is no harder job in politics than leader of the opposition, but that could use a refinement. There is no harder job in … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: A pair of polls put pressure on the Labour Party, a wild night of weather in the North Island, and Shane Jones snapped brandishing a semi-automatic. Parliament resumes today after a fortnight recess, and MPs were given a welcome-back present in the form of two … Read more
A whistlestop tour of the case for the National caucus to give Simon Bridges the boot in favour of JuCo, and the case for doing no such thing. Suddenly the National Party is an issue again. When One News unveiled the results of its latest Colmar Brunton poll last night, attentions were focused less on … Read more
New Zealand has a severe lack of political polls and, without polling, political coverage relies on the opinions of a few Wellington-based journalists. Michael Appleton explains why that’s a bad thing. New Zealand is suffering a severe political polling drought. In the first ten months of 2018, just seven opinion polls were publicly released: five … Read more
A new Colmar Brunton poll for TVNZ conducted in one of National’s bleakest weeks makes tough reading both for the party and its leader. As is often pointed out, to read too much into any one poll is folly: it’s the patterns that matter. That’s a fair point; some of us do every now and … Read more
The National leader will not be happy with just 9% picking him as preferred by PM in a new poll, especially with Judith Collins storming into the scene. But the bigger story is the mire in which Winston Peters finds his party. A funny old morning for Simon Bridges. The party you lead has just … Read more
UMR survey shows National largely resistant to the Labour surge, though Jacinda Ardern’s party has made inroads among centre voters, writes Stephen Mills Between June 2017 and February 2018 Jacinda Ardern has made Labour the dominant force on the left and much more competitive among centrist voters. National, however, has remained largely resistant to the … Read more
After a 10-week hiatus, Colmar Brunton’s poll for TVNZ is revealed on Sunday morning, and mobiles are being surveyed alongside landlines for the first time. It seems a long time since those heady days of early spring, when we were drunk on polls. But after the enforced sobriety post-election – well, there was that one … Read more
Pollwatch: what happens if you factor in NZ First voters’ preferences, asks Toby Manhire. To predict the thinking process of Winston Peters is clearly to skate on thin ice. But what does the most recent polling information tell us about the direction his voters might want to go? With the special votes in, the New … Read more
Bill English and Steven Joyce’s ruthless strategy appears to be thriving, as the drag race nears the finish line. For a while now, the National Party strategy has been two-pronged. First, scare the living shit out of wavering voters over the economic credibility of the Labour Party. Second, stare sternly at old-school blue voters who … Read more
The only thing more volatile than the polling is the commentary around the volatile polling. Statistician Richard Arnold tackles some of the critical questions. We love them, we hate them, and they have a greater impact on our political system than many would like to acknowledge. The problem is, polls are statistics, and people as … Read more
Pollwatch: Labour continues to thrive and the Memorandum of Understanding lurches back into life, if the numbers in tonight’s Colmar Brunton poll are a guide, writes Toby Manhire The helter-skelter experience of watching the New Zealand election 2017 continues, with the just revealed Colmar Brunton survey for 1News, showing Labour holding its lead over National. … Read more
Pollwatch: National open up lead of almost 10 points in a poll that lives up to the hype. And the Greens, on these numbers, are finished. Incredibly explosive, Volatile and telling, and now from the Patrick Gower poll hype machine we have Dramatic and devastating. Hard to argue he’s exaggerating, however, given the numbers from … Read more
Pollwatch: National drops into the 30s as Labour charges on after Joyce attack on their numbers. It seems longer, but it was this time last week that Bill English and Jacinda Ardern were debating for the first time in the campaign, immediately following the release of the astonishing Colmar Brunton poll for 1News. Astonishing because … Read more
Pollwatch: An eagerly awaited Reid poll for Newshub gives National a slim lead, but the most fascinating numbers are NZ First’s. The Colmar Brunton / 1News poll on Thursday night that put Labour ahead of National for the first time in 12 years had heads spinning through the first leaders’ debate and deep into the night. But … Read more
Pollwatch: The new One News poll proves the Jacinda effect is no blip. And the game has changed dramatically ahead of the first debate. For anyone who has been paying attention to New Zealand politics over recent years, these latest numbers from One News and Colmar Brunton don’t so much speak for themselves as shout … Read more
Pollwatch: 1 News’s Colmar Brunton survey puts the Greens out of parliament, in a nostalgic National vs Labour race. MMP was meant to make multi-party politics the norm, and so it has: we’ve never seen a majority one-party government. But the two big parties have resisted all obituaries, and the new Colmar Brunton poll for … Read more
Pollwatch: Under Jacinda Ardern, Labour has powered back to the future in the new Newshub poll, as an embattled Green party slides. But are National impermeable? And should we be talking about a disaster for NZ First, too? Toby Manhire weighs it all up. There is something distasteful about fighting over a political corpse. “We … Read more
Pollwatch: the latest numbers, and Andrew Little’s response, have led to a welter of commentary on Labour’s predicament – including, on the Spinoff, here and here and here – but if only for a quick change of scenery, here are a few other observations worth noting. It is just possible you’ve noticed that the New Zealand Labour Party is not … Read more
Pollwatch: Andrew Little admits he’s thought about standing down, after the latest from One News and Colmar Brunton shows a leap in support for the Greens. And how about that undecided number … During the 2014 election campaign, the Green Party gained a piffling 1% of media coverage, the party’s co-leader James Shaw told the … Read more
Pollwatch: A new poll for TVNZ is being called dismal for Labour and Little. And it is. But it’s not all rosy for National, either, writes Toby Manhire. There’s no getting around it: this evening’s Colmar Brunton poll for TVNZ is for the Labour Party, if you’ll forgive the technical language, pretty shithouse. With two and a half months to polling … Read more
Pollwatch: Reid Research survey suggests a fourth National term remains easily the likeliest scenario, though NZ First is climbing, and their likely recruit is planning an announcement – after the rugby. Grim viewing for Labour on Three tonight. The 100-days-to-go Neswshub/Reid Research poll puts the party down 4.2% on 26.4%, within sniffing distance of their dismal 2014 … Read more
Pollwatch: A new Colmar Brunton / One News poll suggests NZ First is tracking to overtake the Greens, but a sweet post-budget result for Bill English leaves open the possibility they’ll be surplus to requirements Bill English can treat himself to a warm bath of tinned spaghetti tonight: the post-budget poll by Colmar Brunton for One News … Read more