2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October)

[CumbrianLefty]

I mean, to put it in context these are the sort of poll numbers UK Labour were getting in the mid-1990s *when they were still in opposition*. Even taking the current crisis boosting most incumbent governments into account, Ardern has clearly managed to win over most centrist and even some right inclined voters whilst keeping the overwhelming bulk of the left happy. Always an impressive feat.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

https://twitter.com/1NewsNZ/status/1263349306968248320

We’ve had one, yes. What about second Jacindamania?

[Pericles]

In just under half an hour it's expected to be all decided. The rational choice for National is to dump Simon and get Muller in, to at least remove the liability of Simon's leadership. That's why I hope Simon wins, but I think Muller is going to win.

[Pericles]

It looks like their meeting is still going, I'm not sure when we'll know who won.

[Pericles]

Todd Muller has been elected leader with Nikki Kaye as deputy.

[brucejoel99]

Todd Muller has been elected leader with Nikki Kaye as deputy.

Lmao Muller is no different than Bridges: he lacks experience, isn't likable, & doesn't resonante with the public too well. I wouldn't be surprised if National's vote somehow tanks even further.

Worse, he looks like Luxon, so when he fails, their backup plan isn't gonna look so hot either. Everybody will confuse them!

[mileslunn]

Does anyone here actually think National Party will get under 30%?  My guess is they will in end get in upper 30s which is pretty bad for them and Labour party will probably get just under 50% which would be their best or one of their best ever.  Labour party at near 60% and National party barely scrapping 30% I cannot see happen.  Right getting under 30% only happens in a few countries and is pretty rare.  Where I live in Canada, our Tories are polling as bad or slightly worse, but usually our Tories get about 10% below what National Party does so bad for them but not off the charts like for National.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

It’s possible, but I see National settling in the low thirties. Probably something around 40 seats.

NZ isn’t as polarized as the US, so it definitely could happen. I just don’t think National will go quite as far as say 2002. The weird thing is how much the vote has coalesced around the two big parties. So, going back to 2002, I think that we’ll see 2002 style margins between the two parties, but add 10% or so to National and Labour. That’s still a lot more flipping than you’d see in the US.

I think that the Greens will still get in, but I could see there only being 4 parties in Parliament.

[brucejoel99]

Yeah, it's definitely not a sure bet for Labour. They're in a strong position, but when the recession starts to hit, people will be disheartened & angry. National (for some reason) are generally held up as the better party when it comes to running an economy, so that'll be a strong election factor on which they can potentially run very strongly.

For all of the crap I gave Muller earlier in this thread, I actually thought that he gave a pretty good speech after he won. He's seemingly - at least, in the short term - appeared to have learned from Bridges' mistakes in terms of saying that he won't focus on criticizing every governmental decision but will instead be looking at new ideas, which, to be fair, is Labour's current big achilles heel.

Also, now that Bridges is gone, NZ First is open to working with National.

Hopefully Labour can stay on the ball & nail things up to September, but at least on the basis of his first speech, I'm actually now starting to think - contrary to my earlier thoughts of him - that he might be more of a threat than Bridges was, assuming National doesn't end up managing to tear themselves apart from infighting.

[Oryxslayer]

It was said in the Candidan thread, but I will repost it here because of relevance.

The tough thing about calling a snap election to take advantage of COVID goodwill (and this goes for all leaders, not just Trudeau), is that it's a very narrow window of opportunity to exploit. If he goes too early, it will be irresponsible and he'll get crucified for playing politics with a pandemic. If he goes too late the COVID goodwill will have worn off and he'll just be a normal incumbent presiding over a crap economy. It's very hard to hit that sweet spot where one still has goodwill but it wouldn't be seen as crazy to call a national election.

Labour's fate is going to depend on the winds of fate, which is why I keep trying to temper expectations. If everything somewhat subsides and it's just a poor economy instead of a crisis triggering other crises, then Labour may have more problems on their hands. If a true second wave shows up then maybe they can maintain the lead, though voters should be more critical of decisions since this is round 2. If the crisis just keeps dragging out, or we get a miracle cure, then Labour may do just fine. They need to hit the sweet spot, and the govt only can influence about 50% of the outcome.

This applies to most other govt's around the world as well looking to exploit their bounce, or trying to recover from the pit they dug by mishandling the crisis.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour are widely seen to have handled this crisis well, though. Unless they majorly bungle a second wave or similar, you would think that would still count for something come polling day.

[Pericles]

Todd Muller's leadership has already gotten off to a rocky start.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/national-mps-already-leaking-as-new-leadership-team-of-todd-muller-and-nikki-kaye-suffers-disastrous-first-sitting-day.html

In particular, deputy leader Nikki Kaye inaccurately saying that a frontbench MP was of Maori descent to rebut criticism over an all-white frontbench was a dumb move.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Todd Muller's leadership has already gotten off to a rocky start.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/national-mps-already-leaking-as-new-leadership-team-of-todd-muller-and-nikki-kaye-suffers-disastrous-first-sitting-day.html

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joked: "I hadn't heard of Paora Heke Goldsmith until this morning."

New Zealand First MP Shane Jones described it as "sloppy" and said he found it "very rude".

He even delivered a mihi in Parliament on Goldsmith's behalf, "ko te Sky Tower toku whare", which roughly translates to "the Sky Tower is my home".

There’s a part of me that will miss WINston when he’s gone.

[brucejoel99]

Todd Muller's leadership has already gotten off to a rocky start.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/national-mps-already-leaking-as-new-leadership-team-of-todd-muller-and-nikki-kaye-suffers-disastrous-first-sitting-day.html

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joked: "I hadn't heard of Paora Heke Goldsmith until this morning."

New Zealand First MP Shane Jones described it as "sloppy" and said he found it "very rude".

He even delivered a mihi in Parliament on Goldsmith's behalf, "ko te Sky Tower toku whare", which roughly translates to "the Sky Tower is my home".

There’s a part of me that will miss WINston when he’s gone.

It's a part of me I hate, but it is a part of me.

[EastAnglianLefty]

What's the stuff about the 'top 12'? Is there a rigid order of precedence for frontbench posts?

[Mike88]

New polling:

https://twitter.com/ElectsWorld/status/1267420166788431873

[CumbrianLefty]

Muller surge!

[jaymichaud]

Why did NZ First collapse? Knowing their messy asses they probably denied coronavirus existed or something

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

New polling:

https://twitter.com/ElectsWorld/status/1267420166788431873

That’s a nice poll, though I would kinda miss WINston. I wonder if that 1.5% for the Maori Party would translate into winning an electorate. Might crunch some numbers on that later.

[brucejoel99]

New polling:

https://twitter.com/ElectsWorld/status/1267420166788431873

Wow, ACT is on 3.5%! I wonder how many years it's been since they were that high?

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

New polling:

https://twitter.com/ElectsWorld/status/1267420166788431873

Wow, ACT is on 3.5%! I wonder how many years it's been since they were that high?

42 Days ago.

[Pericles]

That's pretty interesting, I hadn't heard of this poll earlier. It makes sense now that it's Roy Morgan, polls outside the big two (Colmar Brunton and Newshub Reid Research) don't get much attention. Roy Morgan polls traditionally do seem to have a larger minor party vote, in particular a Green Party vote, relative to other polls. It does seem like a good sign if National isn't increasing their support since Muller became leader. However I'm seeing that it has the field dates as 27 Apr–24 May 2020, the vast majority of that time was when Simon Bridges was leader and part of that was when National was in the middle of a messy leadership contest. So sadly it can't be proof that Muller-mentum is not a thing.

[Pericles]

Now we do seem to have some proof that Mullermania is not a thing. There is another leaked UMR poll, and these are the results:
Labour-54%
National-30%
NZ First-5%
Greens-4%

No numbers given for ACT.

Labour is down just 1 point and National up 1 point from the last leaked shock poll. The Greens and NZ First both lost a point. It is hard to give parliamentary seats without numbers for ACT, but it is certain that these numbers would result in an overall Labour majority. The one bright side for Muller is that he is on 13% for preferred Prime Minister, notably better than Simon Bridges' numbers. However, Jacinda Ardern remains on a whopping 65% for preferred Prime Minister.

UMR is of course Labour's internal pollster, but its numbers recently and in the past have matched with public polls. So the assumption now has to be that Labour retains a lead of over 20% over National (remember National was 7 points ahead of Labour in the 2017 election), and the governing parties remain above 60% (they got 50.36% combined in 2017). So a resounding win for the Labour Party, perhaps with an overall majority (which has not been achieved so far under MMP) remains likely.

[brucejoel99]

Now we do seem to have some proof that Mullermania is not a thing. There is another leaked UMR poll, and these are the results:
Labour-54%
National-30%
NZ First-5%
Greens-4%

No numbers given for ACT.

Labour is down just 1 point and National up 1 point from the last leaked shock poll. The Greens and NZ First both lost a point. It is hard to give parliamentary seats without numbers for ACT, but it is certain that these numbers would result in an overall Labour majority. The one bright side for Muller is that he is on 13% for preferred Prime Minister, notably better than Simon Bridges' numbers. However, Jacinda Ardern remains on a whopping 65% for preferred Prime Minister.

UMR is of course Labour's internal pollster, but its numbers recently and in the past have matched with public polls. So the assumption now has to be that Labour retains a lead of over 20% over National (remember National was 7 points ahead of Labour in the 2017 election), and the governing parties remain above 60% (they got 50.36% combined in 2017). So a resounding win for the Labour Party, perhaps with an overall majority (which has not been achieved so far under MMP) remains likely.

Not a good start, Todd.

[Pericles]

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.