2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October)

[Pericles]

The first debate has just happened. I think it was a narrow win by Judith Collins, she was a bit more onto it than Jacinda with debating style, but both were fine (not a crushing victory for Collins). Hopefully it doesn't change much, I doubt it was a game changer, but we'll see.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300112938/election-2020-live-judith-collins-and-jacinda-ardern-face-questions-after-first-leaders-debate

[Pericles]

New Colmar Brunton poll;
Labour-48% (-5%)
National-31% (-1%)
ACT-7%(+2%)
Green-6%(+1%)
NZ First-2%(_)

That comes out as a Labour majority.

Preferred PM; Jacinda Ardern 54% (_), Judith Collins 18% (-1%)

How many seats do you think Labour can get? I would be pretty happy to see a healthy majority.

On that poll I think it is 62/120 seats. It might be better for getting the most progressive government for Labour to fall just short and have to form a coalition with the Greens.

[Pericles]

New Colmar Brunton poll;
Labour-48% (-5%)
National-31% (-1%)
ACT-7%(+2%)
Green-6%(+1%)
NZ First-2%(_)

That comes out as a Labour majority.

Preferred PM; Jacinda Ardern 54% (_), Judith Collins 18% (-1%)

How many seats do you think Labour can get? I would be pretty happy to see a healthy majority.

On that poll I think it is 62/120 seats. It might be better for getting the most progressive government for Labour to fall just short and have to form a coalition with the Greens.

Well, I suppose that in theory they could form a coalition with the Greens even if they already have a majority of seats, but I recognize that's not even remotely going to happen in practice.

The Greens could actually be in the government with a Labour majority. John Key for instance got a lot more coalition partners than he needed to get to a bare majority, and he was still going to include other parties when it looked like he'd won a majority in 2014. Labour will want to preserve their relationship with their coalition partners for when they inevitably lose their majority (if they're lucky enough to get one). However the Greens (or NZ First, if they get back in) wouldn't have any leverage. Labour hasn't been clear about how they'd handle a scenario where they get a majority (sensibly).

[Pericles]

It truly astonishes me how badly the National Party screwed this race up.

Yeah, it's amazing how quickly things fell apart for them (though seperating how much was caused by National and how much was caused by Covid/Jacinda Ardern is very difficult). They held up pretty well for a first-term opposition and in February they were polling pretty well (46%, as Simon Bridges cheekily pointed out). In a way, it's more surprising that they were so competitive against such a popular and charismatic Prime Minister (and with Simon Bridges as their leader then), than the fact that they are losing badly now. That said, they are still not helping themselves, with a budget that looks like Swiss cheese. They now have too little left for cost pressures in areas like health. Goldsmith's reply that ""It's just a set of opinions from Grant Robertson about how much should be set aside for extra health funding. We have in our budget plenty of money available to increase investment in health and education," is pretty amateurish imo, because it is an election campaign and he should be able to actually defend his policies and the choices he is making (unless of course Labour are right and he is just incompetent).

[Pericles]

New Newshub/Reid Research poll:

Labour-50.1%(-10.8%)
National-29.6%(+4.5%)
Green-6.5%(+0.8%)
ACT-6.3%(+3.0%)
NZ First-1.9%(-0.1%)

This comes out as 65 Labour seats (+19), National 39 (-17), ACT 9 (+8), Green 8 (_). NZ First is gone, losing all 9 seats.

Preferred Prime Minister is Jacinda Ardern 53.2% (-8.8%), Judith Collins 17.7% (+3.1%).

[Pericles]

Interest breakdown of poll respondents by 2017 vote at the end of the video here:

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-newshub-reid-research-poll-shows-labour-governing-alone-as-national-languishes-in-the-20s.html

2017 Labour voters: Lab 83, Nat 5, Grn 5

2017 National voters: Nat 63, Lab 21, ACT 9

40% of 2017 Green voters chose Labour in the poll

43% of 2017 New Zealand First voters chose Labour in the poll

Intending 2020 ACT voters: Nat 37, Maori 10, Lab 10

Overall that makes sense. It's amazing how the Greens are surviving with so much of their vote going to Labour. Also, I don't understand how so much of the ACT vote is coming from the Maori Party, on those numbers we're supposed to believe that half of 2017 Maori Party voters are voting for ACT?

[Pericles]

Is it just me, or are the polls fluctuating like crazy this year? I know this has been a different kind of election, given COVID, lockdowns, & everything else that 2020 has had to offer, but even then, it still seems overly volatile.

Some NZ elections have stable polling, others don't. 2005-2014 were all very stable. 2017 of course wasn't, with a big Labour surge due to Jacindamania that then seemed to crash quite significantly in the final stretch. A similar election to this one, 2002, was also very unstable, with Labour looking like it would win an overall majority but both Labour and National lost around 10 points of their vote share during the campaign period. NZ voters are less polarised and inelastic than those in many other countries, perhaps that's partly due to us being a smaller country. New Zealanders also tend to vote more on leaders and less on policy than voters in other countries imo. This is probably a bad thing overall, it was very frustrating for Labour in the Key years but now is working great for them.

This election is unusual with Covid and Labour got a huge rally around the flag bump from it. What was perhaps more surprising actually was the relative stability of polling from the 2017 election until Covid. Labour probably was being held back by its policy failures from unleashing the full potential that Jacinda's popularity (and Simon Bridges' unpopularity) offered. The dam seems to have finally broken in March, along with this crisis being different from stuff like the Christchurch shooting because it is still clearly ongoing. Covid also seems to have reinforced Jacinda Ardern's strengths in her being great in a crisis, empathetic and a great communicator.

It's possible then that this election is a bit of a fluke, and National's natural support is much higher so that when Covid fades from view and Labour struggles in another area (such as the economy). However, getting a majority government offers Labour another great opportunity to provide good government, unrestrained by NZ First, and deliver more results on the problems the country faces. If the economy recovers by 2023, Labour may manage to permanently take away National's brand as the best party on the economy. They have almost certainly stolen it for this election. Grant Robertson isn't a scary tax and spend socialist but a very credible and prudent economic manager, and that's the image he seems to project. On the other hand, National's advantage on the economy survived a 3-term Labour government from 1999-2008 (maybe Labour was just unlucky to be in government when the GFC hit?)

[Pericles]

Seems to be in line with a lot of the previous polling we’ve seen. National being under 30 would be amazing. Collins will probably get the boot by the end of the year if that holds.

Maybe, yeah. She said she'd stay on, but one of her own MPs is already undermining her-telling the media that "At the end of the day, it's not her who decides". It seems that internally the bar is set as a party vote of 35% or higher being a success. It might be sensible for National to have a period of reflection after the election though, and maybe they want someone who is relatively new to parliament to be their next leader. So I'm guessing that it might be sensible not to roll Collins immediately but sort out the leadership issue next year, though it's pretty unclear and early.

[Pericles]

Said it before, I don't think the Nationals ever really came to terms with losing power.

Yes, this is accurate. They had managed to convince themselves that they would never again lose power, so were not remotely prepared for it psychologically.

And that they have been so hung up about the 'unfairness' of losing as the largest party.

[Pericles]

That's an interesting poll. As an additional detail, the preferred Prime Minister numbers are Jacinda Ardern 54% (_), Judith Collins 23% (+5%).

The number that sticks out to me is the combined National and ACT vote, which is 41% and would be entitled to 53 seats. That is down just 4% and 4 seats after the last election, which seems pretty impressive given it's a first-term government, Covid, and National's internal struggles that have made clear they are absolutely not a 'strong team'. To be fair, the vote for other parties is a lot less, and Labour and the Greens combined are still on 54% (unchanged from the last poll, up 11% from the 2017 election). It is also just one poll so currently an outlier, the previous Colmar Brunton poll was 38%-54% and Newshub was 35.9%-56.6%. Finally, polling does tend to slightly overestimate National's vote compared to Labour's in New Zealand.

However, maybe, just maybe, there is a narrow path for National to win, or at least for it to be close. The trend is slightly concerning for Labour, its vote may get squeezed as National rebounds and the Greens simultaneously surge as progressives resist a Labour majority. I don't think there's particularly much that Labour can do about the latter threat. So they need to work on minimizing the National vote. They should keep emphasizing National's fiscal holes to lock in their new edge as economically competent (the Newshub poll shows Labour has a 20-point lead on economic competence). A National Party led government would be a disaster for New Zealand because they clearly plan to embark on a policy of austerity, when their nine years of neglect already left our public services underfunded. Labour needs to get a good contrast here, hopefully Jacinda shows up more in mind as well as body in the next debate (though the debates probably don't matter either way). Labour should also emphasize ACT's extreme policy stances, now that it's clear that ACT will be a key part of a National government and to fire back at National's fearmongering about a Labour-Green coalition. It probably won't work though as ACT's surge is probably too late for many people to factor them in. I've also seen a suggestion that Labour could try engineer tactical voting by National voters by getting them to vote Labour so Labour wins a majority rather than needing the Greens, if they think (as they probably do) that National can't win. I'm not sure if it's possible to pull off though, and most people probably would rather not have a majority government.

[Pericles]

If nothing else, it's gonna be fascinating to watch the trouble that'll result from ACT going from 1 MP to 10 first-time MP's. At least David Seymour has his head screwed on in a political sense, but he'll be spending the next 3 years putting out fires left & right if 9 others get in. Hell, they probably didn't even give the list rankings much thought as they were still polling on like ~1-2% when they made it.

And ngl, ACT's rise kinda reminds me of United Future in 2002 when it also suddenly gained several MPs, only for the party to fracture over the course of the next few elections.

Here is their current list. It's notable that only 20 candidates are ranked, and they have had to run several university students on their list. Their #3, Nicole McKee, is a gun rights activist who opposed the gun reform passed after the Christchurch mass shooting. I don't know what the others are like.

[Pericles]

How much of ACT rise is over gun ban?  My understanding is ACT is only party committed to repealing gun ban and while National was right to support it as would have been very tone deaf not too, the minority in gun community tend to put that is number one issue and will switch over just that issue.  Its why One Nation Party after 1996 ban in Australia jumped to 8% and in countries with first past post like Canada and US, its why Conservatives and Republicans won't touch issue for fear of splitting party.  UK different story, but gun ownership is so low there, not same risk as in other four English speaking countries.

Still overall I think barring a major misstep Ardern should get a second term.  Real question is does she form a majority on her own or have to turn to Green Party.  National + ACT getting majority seems very unlikely.

ACT's rise is partly due to the gun ban, partly due to David Seymour's increased profile from his End of Life Choice Bill (and he also performed on Dancing with the Stars in 2018), and partly from National's struggles.

[Pericles]

I was worried that the Greens would underpoll and fall below 5% as a result, making it Labour vs National + ACT combined. The recent polls suggest this is unlikely though, even if the Greens can't win an electorate seat in Auckland Central.

[Pericles]

Also, the nail in the coffin probably came for NZ First yesterday. Two people (name suppression is being used, which is pretty common here) have been charged by the Serious Fraud Office over the NZ First Foundation, which was funnelling donations to the party in a dodgy way to get around electoral laws. Winston tried to suppress the announcement until after the election, but failed.

[Pericles]

Newshub's referendum numbers;

Cannabis referendum:
No-50.5%
Yes-37.9%

End of Life Choice Act referendum:
Yes-61.6%
No-25.5%

It's sad and pretty weird how New Zealand seems set to reject legalising cannabis.

Also, we just had the second leader's debate. Jacinda brought a lot more energy and I think she won it by a bit this time. Both did pretty well, weirdly Judith Collins did defend Trump by pointing out he didn't start any wars so he's better than other recent Presidents in that regard. Here is some more info on the debate-https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300119570/election-2020-live-judith-collins-jacinda-ardern-clash-on-climate-change-covid19-but-agree-on-fouryear-term

[Pericles]

Lol, this is pretty cool. Mark Richardson "thinking about voting Labour". In case you don't know, Mark Richardson is an outspoken right-winger and National Party supporter (and a former NZ cricketer).

"The reason I'm doing this is because I've almost conceded defeat to Labour and I can handle them governing alone. If you are a centre-right voter right now, you're going 'look, I don't think even with a little bit of tide moving towards National and ACT it's not going to be enough, I think, to stop Labour getting back into Government'. But the stronger the right gets right now, the more it brings the Green Party back into the picture. So in a weird way if National grow their party vote and Labour are forced to govern with the Greens, you end up with a more left-liberal Government than Labour governing alone. That is a real conundrum for a right-centre voter right now."

That is a good sign for the tactical voting phenomenon I mentioned earlier to occur, though I don't know whether people like Richardson will actually come over to Labour. It might depend on what the next few polls say.

[Pericles]

Mask and social distancing requirements will be gone in Auckland from 11:59 pm on Wednesday. This is the tenth consecutive day without community transmission in New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern said that there is an at least 95% chance that the Auckland cluster has been eliminated. So New Zealand is now entirely back to normal life, with the exception of the borders being closed.

With the election, hopefully this reinforces the boost Labour have received from their Covid response and ensures a landslide victory. Voting started two days ago, and many people will vote before October 17, so time has almost completely run out for the National Party.

[Pericles]

A UMR poll has been released, with cannabis legalisation ahead 49%-45%. This seems to be an internal poll for the Yes campaign, as it is funded by the Helen Clark Foundation and the New Zealand Drug Foundation which are both Yes supporters. UMR has seemed accurate in the past, so hopefully this is also accurate. There is hope for the Yes campaign, we'll need to see what other polls say. Minor quibble with NZ media also, but the headline saying a 4-point lead shows a likely Yes victory is exaggerating the reliability of polls imo. One day NZ probably gets hit with a relatively normal polling error that swings a close election and so is seen as a huge shock and embarrassment to pollsters.

[Pericles]

Lol, 'strong team'.
National MPs leaking against Collins, accuse her of "making up policy on the hoof"

A National MP has told 1 NEWS the party hasn’t had a caucus call or poll result for weeks and says there is a culture issue in the party.

The MP told 1 NEWS Judith Collins has “bullied” MP Denise Lee and hasn’t brought the caucus together.

It comes after an email leaked to Newshub showed National's Auckland Council spokesperson Denise Lee criticising a National policy to review Auckland Council.

Lee called it a "highly problematic idea", a "nightmare" and "another working group", and said bypassing her was "incredibly poor form and displays a shockingly bad example of poor culture", while another National Party member said Collins was consistently "making up policy on the hoof" and creating division.

[Pericles]

Hopefully this means turnout is high. Maybe that's part of it, most likely the main reason though is because people prefer voting early to on the day now. For election night, it seems this will mean the results are known pretty early. It'll be a bit of a ripoff, because it looks like the referendum results won't be counted and announced on election night but only revealed afterwards.

[Pericles]

Hopefully this means turnout is high. Maybe that's part of it, most likely the main reason though is because people prefer voting early to on the day now. For election night, it seems this will mean the results are known pretty early. It'll be a bit of a ripoff, because it looks like the referendum results won't be counted and announced on election night but only revealed afterwards.

Or COVID-19 as in most places more voting early because of that although New Zealand with so few cases, probably fewer who feel voting in person is unsafe.  So hard to say.  In most places, I would just say its a result of pandemic and means nothing.  But with so few cases in New Zealand may be less of an issue.

Yeah, Covid is probably accelerating the trend. People might want to lock their votes in, in case the situation changes before the election.

[Pericles]

Final Colmar Brunton poll;
Labour-46%(-1%)
National-31%(-1%)
Green-8%(+2%)
ACT-8%(_)
NZ First-3%(+1%)

Labour would fall short of an outright majority on this poll.

Preferred PM is 55% Jacinda Ardern to 20% Judith Collins, net approval is +55% and +6% respectively.

National has also had a weak ending to the campaign, with Judith Collins mainly making headlines over the last few days for calling obesity a 'personal choice'. Meanwhile, Labour is using the 'strong and stable' slogan a lot lol, which I'd thought was cursed after how it ended up for Theresa May. Odds are that Labour will achieve technically the same result (hung parliament), but in a much different political context.

[Pericles]

Final Colmar Brunton poll;
Labour-46%(-1%)
National-31%(-1%)
Green-8%(+2%)
ACT-8%(_)
NZ First-3%(+1%)

[...]

Colmar under-polled NZF by 2.3% in their final poll last time. Perhaps Winston has one last trick up his sleeve after all

Yeah, apparently they have him on literally 2.7% (up from 2.4% in the last poll). I hope he does lose, but it would be hilarious too if he gets 5.0% exactly. Still, I don't think it's happening. I did see this tweet about the average Colmar Brunton polling errors.

Unfortunately, I can't find the decimal numbers for all the parties in that Colmar Brunton poll. So I'll give my best estimate, based on rounding.
Labour-46%
National-30%
ACT-8%
Green-7%
NZ First-3.5% (since I did find the numbers for them)

I put these into a seat calculator and got 61 Labour, 39 National, 11 ACT, and 9 Greens. However it would be very close, based on the exact decimals (they had to actually get 46.0% or higher).

I'll wait for the Newshub poll, since I think there is a final one coming tonight, and then see what my prediction is.

[Pericles]

I thought the threshold was 4% and not 5%?

If it's 4%, NZF has a possibility for an upset but it is unlikely. If it is 5% they are toast I guess, unless they somehow win an electorate.

5%, and despite the latter scenario being speculated about, they're not going to win an electorate. The Greens have a slim shot in Auckland Central as a backup plan, but most likely is that Labour gains that seat, and second most likely is that they split the vote for National to retain it in an upset.

[Pericles]

Newshub poll;

61 Labour seats (+15 from 2017), 41 National (-15), 10 ACT (+9), 8 Green (no change) and 0 NZ First (-9)

Preferred PM is 52.6% Jacinda Ardern to 18.4% Judith Collins.