2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October)

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Petition to change thread title to “2020 New Zealand general election and reefer-end-them (19 September)”

x Fubart Solman

Sounds like NZ First is the one to watch. Will they break 5%? Also, I’m surprised that Labour is so low given how popular Jacinda is.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Off course major events as we saw with Christchurch shooting between now and election could swing things.  For example if Coronavirus hits NZ and government handles it badly could sink them, just as well a strong handling could help them.  I've also heard National may dump Bridges and bring in a more popular leader as Labour last time around looked like they had no chance with Andrew Little, but changing leaders changed all that.

Who does National have that would be better than Bridges?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Doesnt Labour get a bit of a cushion because they and their allies always sweep the 7 (?) Maori seats?

Not always. NZ First was strong in the Māori seats in the late 90’s IIRC. The Māori Party split off in the early 2000s due to disagreements over the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi in respect to the foreshore or something like that. The Māori Party propped up National for a fair amount of the Key/English years. Mana was basically just Hone Harawira (he’s a fascinating fellow) trying to be relevant; it was also pretty far to the left. Labour did sweep the Māori seats in 2017, meaning that there are no Māori based parties in the Māori seats (or in parliament). Mana has crumbled and I’m somewhat doubtful that the Māori Party can win any of the Māori seats this time around.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Lol, the Greens might run an 18 year old against Jacinda. https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN21Y1LI

Seems like this kid doesn’t understand that politics requires compromise. That being said, I’d love to see Labour shedding NZ First and going into C&S with the Greens (if they even need it). Have there been any public polls since February? If National is in the low 30’s, I could see Labour polling 50%.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

What happened to TOP? They were the highest polling party to not enter parliament last time and now their numbers are like, 1/10 of their 2017 result.

They had something of a Perot situation. They were about to deregister, but stayed together at the last minute. As far as I know, their leader, Gareth Morgan, won’t have anything to do with the party this time. Their current leader, Geoff Simmons was the deputy leader under Morgan.

Lots of NZ parties have pretty much collapsed after they lost their final seats or failed to win any seats at all. See (Internet-)Mana, the Conservatives, the Progressives, the Alliance, United Future, etc. Some of these were more personality based than others, but the minor parties generally don’t do too well if they didn’t get any seats in the previous election.

The Maori Party and NZ First are the ones to watch, imo. The Maori party probably still has a ceiling just north of 2%, but the real question is whether they can win electorates or not. They didn’t last time. NZ First doesn’t really have a good electorate base (Northland, 2015 was more of a fluke, imo) and has been polling below 5%. The Greens could have reason to worry, but they’ve at least been polling higher than NZ First.

Any chance the government parties make a deal not to run in every constituency so that NZ First and the Greens are guaranteed to enter the parliament by getting a safe FPTP seat?

I doubt it myself, but if Labour does make a deal with the Greens, I think it will be in Nelson. National holds it and the Greens broke 20% in the electorate race; still behind Labour though, which is part of why I doubt it would happen.

Pericles would probably have better insight than I would.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

A longer explanation of NZ First's existence is that Nationals were historically - for a conservative party - very, very economically interventionist (to the point of basically trying to create an autarkic economy), which, in turn led to a weird episode of a Labour government enacting Thatcherite policies. Nationals opposed them at every turn, obviously only until the moment they got into government themselves. In response, their statist wing broke off and created NZ First.

This also led to the formation of NewLabour and later the Alliance. Man, that was a weird 10-15 20 years.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Reminder that most govt's right now are experiencing either never-before-seen highs in approval and support, or horrific lows in the previous categories. No govt can capitalize on these numbers though since the source of the support is also preventing any electoral campaigning.

Yeah, fortunately Jacinda isn’t gonna pull a Muldoon and drunkenly call a snap election. It will be interesting to see if they can hold these numbers, but wow. Just wow.

This could be the first time under MMP in which a party can form a majority government on their own. I’m hoping that the Greens hold on. I’m guessing that the Maori Party will be toast. Obviously, those electorates are tricky to predict and dependent on lots of things, but if the Maori Party couldn’t win any last time, I have a hard time seeing them winning any this time.

Taking this with a grain of salt but it is newsworthy.

Speaking of potentially newsworthy, but ultimately unlikely to have any effect, Jami-Lee Ross is forming his own party.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328220&ref=art_readmore

Simple Simon may be screwed, but it won’t be thanks to Jami-Lee.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

That’s impressive. I’m assuming that (barring a star Maori Party candidate) Labour will sweep the Maori electorates too. I’m hoping that the Greens stay above the threshold.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I’m honestly torn on this one. Do I want to see Simple Simon get humiliated now or in September? I’m not sure that Simon is the problem here tbh. Sure, he’s not that great, but Covid has really thrown it to Jacinda at this point. I’m not sure anyone who replaces Bridges would do measurably better.

If National replaces Bridges and still lost (with low 30s in the party vote), would they get another leader, or would Bridges’s replacement stay for the next three years?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

New Poll from Colman Brunton and 1 News

Labour Party - 59% (up 18 percentage points)
National Party - 29% (down 17 percentage points)
Green Party - 4.7%
New Zealand First - 2.9%
ACT - 2.2%
Māori Party - 1.2%
Don’t Know/Refused - 16%

This translates to 79 seats for Labour, 38 for National, and 3 for ACT.

Lots of undecideds, I’d imagine that the Greens could pull enough to hit the threshold.

This is National’s worst polling since 2003.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

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

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

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.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

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

Uh, yeah. She won’t lose her electorate. I assume New Frontier is talking about her (in effect Labour) winning enough for her to stay as PM. Unless the Greens go under 5% and National has a surge, I don’t see Ardern losing in September.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

WTF the National leader Muller just resigned effective immediately!

He lasted 53 days.

Cracked up when I saw the headline that he was quitting. Although reading the article, apparently it’s for health reasons, so I hope that he does get better.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Two senior National MPs announced their retirements. Nikki Kaye, who just a few days ago was deputy leader, is retiring from politics. That also means her electorate probably won't be held by National. Also, Amy Adams is retiring. Her situation is absolutely ridiculous as she retired last year under Simon Bridges, then un-retired as soon as Muller was elected and now right after this leadership change she is re-retiring.

I don’t want to get off Mr National’s Wild Ride.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

What is really shocking to my American perspective is how close all of this is happening to the election. There’s just over 2 months until the election and seat candidates are still dropping out and getting replaced. Here, the ballots would probably already have been printed. This doesn’t really factor in to leadership changes though.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

So what would replace the National Party if they completely collapse. I doubt that Labour would take all the gains. NZ First? ACT?

I know that ACT has had better polling than they’ve had in the last decade or so. NZ First has been dropping like a rock and will likely not make it into parliament this election. They’re at something like 2%.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a chain of scandals. I mean, National were already dead in the water three months ago and yet, here we are. I wouldn’t put it beyond them to get under 30% at this rate. It’s just astonishing. At this rate, Maureen Pugh will be the leader. At least she’s so useless that she might not do anymore harm to the Nats.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Assuming ACT wins Epsom, here’s the seat calculation:

Labour 77
National 32
Greens 7
ACT 4

Labour needs 61 to govern alone. No party has gained a majority of seats in parliament since the introduction of MMP in the 1996 election.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Assuming ACT wins Epsom, here’s the seat calculation:

Labour 77
National 32
Greens 7
ACT 4

Labour needs 61 to govern alone. No party has gained a majority of seats in parliament since the introduction of MMP in the 1996 election.

National currently has ~38 electorate MPs, so we may see some overhang &/or them not have any list MPs.

And Paul Goldsmith's gonna have to actually fight for Epsom to stay in, because losing it could push ACT out entirely.

Given how poorly National is doing, I don’t expect overhangs to be an issue on their end. I think that Seymour should be fairly safe in Epsom for that reason as well.

I wouldn’t be shocked if National only get something like 3 or 4 list seats though.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

A bit of speculation about Greens aiming for Auckland Central

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/07/nz-election-2020-greens-throwing-everything-at-auckland-central-to-ensure-place-back-in-parliament.html

If I were to amend my signature slightly, I would add that I support Swarbrick for the electorate vote in AC. At this point, I think that the Greens will still eke out 5% or more, but I think it will be close. (I’m thinking 5.5% or so.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

There has also been a seeming outlier poll putting Labour "only" about 10 points ahead?

Curia (National’s in house pollster) has a poll out from a few days ago with Labour at 47, National at 36, Greens at 6, and ACT at 3. Funny how that’s 1% above the result Collins had previously said would be the end of her leadership.