2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October)

[CumbrianLefty]

That is a bit of a contrast with the previous poll, which showed no significant National Party gains.

[Continential]

When the NZ First is gone, we all are going to miss Winston Peters.
Also, David Clark is very unpopular and most people think that he should resign.

[brucejoel99]

A new Colmar Brunton poll has been released. Here are the numbers
Labour: 50% (-9% on previous poll, +13% on 2017 election)
National: 38% (+9%, -6%)
Green: 6% (+1%, no change)
ACT: 3% (+1%, +2%)
NZ First: 2% (-1%, -5%)

Labour + Greens= 56% (-8%, +13%)
Labour + Greens + NZ First= 58% (-9%, +8%)
National + ACT= 41% (+10%, -4%)

On preferred Prime Minister it is Jacinda Ardern at 54% and Todd Muller at 13%. His approval rating is net +9% though, much better than Simon Bridges' -40% in the last poll. That point is probably part of the reason why National has surged, the other reason being the government's rally around the flag effect beginning to wear off. There has also been controversy about the border protection measures, as people have been let out of quarantine early on compassionate exemptions without getting tested, and people haven't been tested at the end of the 14 day isolation. It doesn't seem like there has been any actual spread into the community though and so the risk of going back up the alert levels is low.

Shows that Labour's bounce was almost 100% off swing voters.

[2016]

Jacinda Ardern and her joke Government! Bragging about being corona-free and then having numerous cases over the last week, lol.

[brucejoel99]

Jacinda Ardern and her joke Government! Bragging about being corona-free and then having numerous cases over the last week, lol.

LOL what are you even talking about? The 2 cases that caused all of the uproar have recovered. Over 10,000 tests in a single day. No sign of community transmission. NZ is just fine.

You wanna talk about a joke government? Why don't you talk about the government which has seemingly decided that COVID just isn't a thing anymore? Which government is that again? Oh yeah, the United States of America, whose incumbent President you continue to fully support. Florida tested 27,602 people on Tuesday, & of those, 5,511 tested positive. And yet, you think it's NZ that's the joke here?

Get your f**king priorities straight.

[Pericles]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

[brucejoel99]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

Hopefully the tide can turn for legalization as September approaches.

[CumbrianLefty]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

Great shame if that fails.

[Pericles]

The National Party caucus is leaking again. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/06/national-party-s-internal-polling-revealed-as-caucus-springs-another-leak.html

Apparently their internal polling has them at 34% to Labour's 55%, when it was at 35% in their polls just before Simon Bridges was ousted. This is notably worse for them than the Colmar Brunton poll. Perhaps more importantly, it suggests the party is still deeply divided.

In related news, two National MPs in close succession-Anne Tolley and former deputy Paula Bennett announced they are retiring at this election. Bennett announced her decision on the same day as an economic speech from Todd Muller, so maybe that was deliberate on her part.

[brucejoel99]

The National Party caucus is leaking again. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/06/national-party-s-internal-polling-revealed-as-caucus-springs-another-leak.html

Apparently their internal polling has them at 34% to Labour's 55%, when it was at 35% in their polls just before Simon Bridges was ousted. This is notably worse for them than the Colmar Brunton poll. Perhaps more importantly, it suggests the party is still deeply divided.

In related news, two National MPs in close succession-Anne Tolley and former deputy Paula Bennett announced they are retiring at this election. Bennett announced her decision on the same day as an economic speech from Todd Muller, so maybe that was deliberate on her part.

Yeah, this isn't surprising given that the poll before last had Labour governing alone during a period that saw the highest amount of media scrutiny on them, while Muller has still yet to do anything of significance &/or release any form of reasonable policy so close to an election.

Labour has fixed any issues that have been raised on their end, while National have only dug themselves into a deeper hole by calling for open borders, & it's quite possible they'll continue to dip even further towards the election.

With only a month on the job, Muller has already proven himself to be somebody who is weak, unlikable, tone deaf on the issues, unable to control his members (e.g., the outgoing deputy leader literally doing a resignation revenge dance in response to being rolled), spreads lies & fear-mongers, & isn't committed to any values that New Zealanders believe in. The "opposition for the sake of opposition" line was just a fluffy statement that he himself stopped following after 3 days.

Even Bridges had better control of his party when he was leader, which is surprising because he was awful too. You can't lead a country if you can't even get your own house in order.

[Estrella]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

Great shame if that fails.

A proud recipient of the David Cameron Referendum Loser Award.

What was her reason for calling a referendum instead of passing it in parliament, anyway? Winston's opposition?

[Pericles]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

Great shame if that fails.

A proud recipient of the David Cameron Referendum Loser Award.

What was her reason for calling a referendum instead of passing it in parliament, anyway? Winston's opposition?

That is part of it. The reason the referendum is being held to begin with is because it was a Green Party policy. Labour only promised decriminalisation at the 2017 election.

[brucejoel99]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

Great shame if that fails.

A proud recipient of the David Cameron Referendum Loser Award.

What was her reason for calling a referendum instead of passing it in parliament, anyway? Winston's opposition?

That is part of it. The reason the referendum is being held to begin with is because it was a Green Party policy. Labour only promised decriminalisation at the 2017 election.

I feel like it'll inevitably come down to the government in the end anyway, regardless of the result. There's a lot of tax dollars to be made on legal weed, not to mention the savings on police spending, & given the current economic climate, it's gonna be needed.

[Pericles]

The Colmar Brunton poll results for the cannabis referendum were just released. Sadly, legalisation is narrowly down right now. It is 49% No, 40% Yes and 11% Don't Know.

Great shame if that fails.

A proud recipient of the David Cameron Referendum Loser Award.

What was her reason for calling a referendum instead of passing it in parliament, anyway? Winston's opposition?

That is part of it. The reason the referendum is being held to begin with is because it was a Green Party policy. Labour only promised decriminalisation at the 2017 election.

I feel like it'll inevitably come down to the government in the end anyway, regardless of the result. There's a lot of tax dollars to be made on legal weed, not to mention the savings on police spending, & given the current economic climate, it's gonna be needed.

I think a No vote would kill legalization for a few years. Unfortunately a Yes vote doesn't mean it's all done either. Again due to NZ First, the vote is just on a draft bill and the details need to be worked out by the next parliament. If Labour wins hopefully that will be done relatively smoothly, though there'll be some disputes about what exactly the Yes vote meant. A National win makes it more problematic. Simon Bridges hadn't committed to enacting a Yes vote at all but Muller has. However the National Party as a whole is strongly on the No side, so I expect that it would be watered down quite a lot and this could be seen as a betrayal of what people voted for.

[Former President tack50]

Why is National divided? Is it simply a reaction to them being quite down in the polls and feeling their leader is ineffective? Or is there a deeper idelogical divide (radicals vs moderates, some sort of dividing issue, etc)

[Please delete this account. :)]

And Clark has resigned. Interesting to see what effect this will have on Labour. I think it'll be a positive to them, Clark was never particularly popular with their base anyway.

[Pericles]

And Clark has resigned. Interesting to see what effect this will have on Labour. I think it'll be a positive to them, Clark was never particularly popular with their base anyway.

David Clark's resignation definitely helps (or more accurately, removes a bleeding liability for Labour). He's been toxic since his lockdown breaches, and him blaming beloved Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield for border botchups and taking no responsibility himself (while Bloomfield stood behind him) was a nail in the coffin.

He is staying in parliament it seems, and his Dunedin North electorate is safe-he got a majority of over 30% last time and Labour beat National by 20 points in the party vote there. This is especially the case given that the National Party was 7 points ahead of Labour in 2017, Labour is more likely to beat National by double digits this year. I pity the people of that electorate, the other candidate is National MP Michael Woodhouse who made up a story about a homeless man getting a free 14-day stay in managed isolation. Still, it will be interesting to see what the margin is, whether it swings against Clark or the nationwide swing gives him an even bigger majority.

[Pericles]

There is a new scandal with National MP for Clutha-Southland Hamish Walker having leaked the personal details of Covid-19 patients to the media. Former National Party President Michelle Boag is also implicated, she was the one who originally found the information and passed it onto Walker. This seems to have been some dumb plot to expose "shortcomings" in the government's response. Walker is already under fire for complaining about arrivals from India, Pakistan and Korea, which seemed pretty racist. Todd Muller has stripped Walker of his shadow portfolios in response. Health Minister Chris Hipkins had threatened criminal charges in response to the leak before the identities of the leakers were revealed. In extra irony, Walker's predecessor as Clutha-Southland MP was Todd Barclay who also ended up being plagued by scandal. This is bound to be unhelpful for the National Party.

[Please delete this account. :)]

National seems to have blown up their chances of dragging Labour down below 50%, however a lot can change in a couple of months. Also, ACT seems to be polling near the level needed to get some list seats, in addition to their Epsom electorate.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think that its clear NP never expected to lose power at the last GE, and haven't taken it terribly well.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

I think that its clear NP never expected to lose power at the last GE, and haven't taken it terribly well.

It’s kind of amazing how well Key held them together for 8 years given what we’ve seen in the last 4 years.

This will be a weird election for NZ, I think. Looks like NZ First may get the boot and Labour has a good shot at breaking 50% of the seats. There’s a definite possibility that Labour gets 61 seats with something like 48.5% or so, depending on how many votes the minor parties get.

[Please delete this account. :)]

It is quite interesting how National has effectively collapsed since the last GE, Key's resignation definitely destabilized them long-term.

NZF is definitely not in an enviable position right now.

[Pericles]

And Hamish Walker will not be standing at the coming election.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Jacinda is probably going to cruise to re-election, right?

[Please delete this account. :)]

If Ardern loses her Mount Albert electorate, something's gone horribly wrong for Labour.