Opportunity is 0.4 points short of Parliament. The latest 1News Verian poll has the party at 4.6%, a gain of 1.3%, and the cut-off is 5% of the party vote. A party that clears that line, or wins an electorate seat, gets in. This would be Opportunity’s fourth attempt.
The bigger movement came from the two parties that usually dominate the count. Labour fell 5 points, from 37% to 32%, wiping out the gains it made in the previous poll. National slipped 1 point to 29%. That is the first time Christopher Luxon has led the party below 30% in this poll. Under Judith Collins, National recorded 28% in her last poll as leader, shortly before she lost the job.
Together, Labour and National hold 61%. 1News says that is the lowest combined figure since 1996, the year of the first MMP election.
Where the votes went
Smaller parties took most of what the big two dropped. The Greens rose 2 points to 13%, and New Zealand First went from 10% to 11%. ACT moved the other way. It lost 1 point to reach 6%, its fourth fall in a row.
The share of voters who said they did not know, or would not say, jumped 5 points to 14%.
On those numbers the left bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would hold 64 seats. The right bloc of National, NZ First and ACT would have 60. The seat count assumes Te Pāti Māori keeps its six electorate seats, which 1News called unlikely given the trouble the party has had over the past year, and it would leave an overhang of four seats.
Preferred prime minister
Luxon is back in front as preferred prime minister, though not by much. He gained 2 points to reach 18%, up from the record low of 16% he hit last time. Chris Hipkins lost 3 points and sits on 16%. Winston Peters fell from 12% to 10% even as his party improved.
Chlöe Swarbrick held steady on 6% and David Seymour on 4%.
How the poll was taken
Between June 13 and June 17 2026, 1001 eligible voters were surveyed, half by mobile phone (500) and half through online panels (500). The maximum sampling error is about ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. 1News describes the results as a snapshot, not a prediction.
A later survey, The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll, canvassed 1458 voters from 9 to 19 October and put Opportunity at 5.4 percent, with Labour on 28.7 percent and National on 27.6 percent. RNZ deputy political editor Craig McCulloch told Morning Report that with Opportunity sitting on the threshold, a fraction of a percentage point could turn the whole race on its head.
Sources
- Poll: Big two parties at 30-year low, Opportunity nears 5% threshold
- New poll puts election on knife-edge with Opportunity close to 5% threshold
