2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October) (user search)
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Author Topic: 2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October)  (Read 41697 times)
Pericles
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« on: January 30, 2020, 09:47:19 PM »
« edited: August 16, 2020, 05:55:01 PM by President Pericles »

Seems like time for a thread on this. A few days ago Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern named September 19 as the date for the next general election, along with referendums on euthanasia and marijuana legalization. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/01/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-confirms-2020-general-election-date.html

The election looks competitive, with a National Party led government, a Labour-Greens government and a continuation of the Labour-NZ First-Greens government all looking plausible. The most recent poll was taken in November and had National on 46%, Labour on 39%, Greens 7%, NZ First 4.3% and ACT 1.6% (which would have barely gotten a National led government), but Jacinda Ardern has much higher personal popularity, beating Opposition Leader Simon Bridges by 26 points in the preferred Prime Minister stakes. The cannabis referendum looks very competitive right now, so far the euthanasia referendum looks like it will pass (though I haven't seen much polling on that).
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Pericles
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« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2020, 11:56:54 PM »

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?

The main alternative is Judith Collins. Whether she'd be better than Bridges, well that's debatable.
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Pericles
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« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2020, 03:02:41 AM »

The background to this election is the 2017 result. My sense is the public mood then was essentially that National had managed the economy well and Labour weren't fully trustworthy there, but National had neglected other areas like housing, public services and the environment. So that and of course Jacinda Ardern's personal popularity led to the mixed result. Since then, Jacinda Ardern has if anything become even more popular (while Simon Bridges lacks the gravitas of Bill English). The economy has not gone into recession yet and the budget is in great shape, but gl obal economic uncertainty is a worry for Labour and National likes to highlight low business confidence (how much this matters is unclear).

There is however a widespread sense that Labour has overpromised and underdelivered, and that it hasn't actually accomplished much domestically. Soundbites like 'a transformational government' and 'the year of delivery' have come back to haunt Labour. This isn't entirely fair-Labour has made a major accomplishment on climate change, has boosted education and health spending, invested in mental health and generally are doing a better job than National imo. That said, Labour has so far failed to address the housing crisis, with its Kiwibuild program being a massive flop and Labour ditching the idea of a capital gains tax due to it being a political liability. On poverty Labour has also struggled to go as far as it probably should be, with the political will not being apparent so far for recommended changes like an increase in welfare benefits. On infrastructure, the government had been under attack previously, but recently announced a $12 billion investment there (the timing is good due to low borrowing costs, but also of course it is good timing politically).

Still, New Zealanders are usually pretty generous to first-term governments-the last one that lost was in 1975. Leadership is also a big factor, and Labour has a big advantage over National there. So far, with sparse and volatile polling, it's hard to predict the election result.

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Pericles
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« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2020, 12:14:10 AM »

National Party leader Simon Bridges has ruled out working with NZ First after the election, saying "I don't trust NZ First and I don't believe New Zealanders can either." It's a bit of a bold move, since it ensures that if NZ First has the balance of power again National won't form the government. ACT currently is National's only ally, and they got 0.5% of the party vote and 1 MP last election. However, NZ First was probably always going to choose Labour. I think this is the right move by National and their best move is to try and drive NZ First under the 5% threshold-which this does by ensuring a vote for NZ First is seen as a vote for a Labour government.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119215711/simon-bridges-rules-out-working-with-nz-first-after-election
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Pericles
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« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2020, 12:46:09 AM »

Pericles,

What's happened to the Conservatives. They were a threat to passing the threshold in 2014 and then imploded.

I think they have reformed as "New Conservatives", however are they a viable force this year?

Yeah they got 0.24% in the last election. There's some chatter about them being a contender this year, and National is looking for allies. However it is unlikely at this stage, in the most recent poll they were on just 1%, and have been stuck polling at 0-1%. Most likely National takes virtually all the right-wing vote, while ACT gets 1 or 2%. National's ceiling is probably 47% (what they got in their 2011 and 2014 landslides) while them falling below 40% is unlikely (and would be a nightmarish election result for them).
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Pericles
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« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2020, 08:51:46 PM »

National Party did get below 40% in 2005 although that was a different era and that was at the height of third way social democracy.  Today that coalition for Labour probably not feasible as there is a much stronger left wing base amongst millennials who will go elsewhere if Labour moves that close to centre, but at same time being left of that ensures they will struggle outside big cities and amongst older voters who would go for a centrist Labour, but not left of centre (Ardern may not be Third way, but she isn't either hard left like Jeremy Corbyn either).

My guess is National party wins popular vote, but Labour ends up forming government, but wouldn't be surprised if Labour narrowly wins the popular vote or National forms government.  If my prediction happens, it would mean 3 of the 5 Anglosphere countries have leaders who lost popular vote (Trudeau and Trump the other two).

Well I don't think the NZ example is quite the same as those two because of our proportional electoral system. National received a plurality of seats and votes in the last election, but the governing parties combined got both a majority of the party vote (50.36%, and 5% higher than the pro-National bloc) and a majority of seats. It'd be like Trump and Trudeau if National got more votes but got less seats than Labour-which of course can't happen under our current electoral system.
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Pericles
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« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2020, 12:19:46 AM »

A new poll from Newshub came out the other day (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/02/national-and-labour-neck-and-neck-in-new-newshub-reid-research-poll.html).
The results were National 43.3%, Labour 42.5%, Green 5.6%, NZ First 3.6%, ACT 1.8%. So that results in 56 seats for National (no change from 2017), 55 seats for Labour (+9), 7 seats for the Greens (-1), 2 seats for ACT (+1) and 0 seats for NZ First (-9). Therefore, it results in a Labour-Greens government with 62 seats to 58 for the Opposition (for comparison, Labour-NZ First-Greens right now has 63 seats to 57 for National and ACT). Those seat projections assume that NZ First or other minor parties like the Maori Party don't gain an electorate seat, which is pretty likely but not certain. In that poll, preferred Prime Minister ratings are Jacinda Ardern on 38.7% and Simon Bridges on 10.6%.

As the previous Newshub poll was not as favourable to National as the Colmar Brunton one, the changes in this poll from the last are only small. For preferred Prime Minister that is virtually no change for Jacinda but an increase of around 4 points for Bridges, so he isn't doing as badly as before. However he is still way behind Jacinda and 10.6% is pretty low, so that remains a big disadvantage for him.
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Pericles
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« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2020, 04:48:30 AM »

Colmar Brunton released a new poll (https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/1-news-colmar-brunton-poll-national-and-act-hold-numbers-form-government). It was pretty similar to their last one, National still has the numbers to form a government. Here are the party vote numbers;
National- 46%
Labour-41%
Green Party-5%
New Zealand First-3%
ACT-2%

Due to New Zealand First falling below the 5% threshold and their vote therefore being wasted, National and ACT on these numbers would have a majority-59 seats for National (+3), 52 seats for Labour (+6), 7 seats for the Greens (-1), 2 seats for ACT (+1), 0 seats for NZ First (-9). The preferred Prime Minister numbers have Jacinda Ardern's lead growing even larger, with her on 42% (a 6-point increase from the last poll) to Bridges on 11% (up 1% from the last poll).

So I'm not quite sure what to make of this, at the moment I do think National will underperform this poll (the Newshub poll seems more accurate and was better in the last election).
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Pericles
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« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2020, 04:29:04 AM »

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

If somehow National won the Maori seats (of course this is not happening), that would make no difference to the overall seat result due to the electoral system being proportional. The Maori seats (or any electorate seat result for that matter) only change the results when the party winning that seat would not have otherwise gotten representation in parliament (because they would be below the 5% party vote threshold).

The Maori Party and Mana Party never got close to the 5% threshold, there are also minor parties like ACT and previously United Future that got given an electorate by the National Party so they would stay in parliament and this slightly boosts National's chances of forming a government.

For this election, Epsom will almost certainly affect the results by again letting ACT get into parliament without getting 5% of the vote, and perhaps ACT will get enough of the party vote to get one or two list MPs too. There is also the possibility that NZ First falls below the 5% threshold but due to Labour support wins an electorate seat such as Northland, and so remains in parliament, but this is unlikely. Labour perhaps should do an electorate deal with the Greens to ensure there isn't a situation where they get 4.9% of the vote and so have 0 seats, while the wasted vote boosts National and leads to a National government. The Greens probably won't win an electorate though, a deal with Labour doesn't seem to be on the agenda.

There is also a slim possibility the Maori Party stages a comeback and wins a Maori seat, but that probably won't happen either. Even if it did, the Maori Party might back Labour this time, backing National again would be political suicide. The Maori Party have never been in a position where if they chose to support the other major party, that would have actually changed which government was formed (however if they had been re-elected in the 2017 election, it does seem pretty likely they would have backed Bill English and the National Party).
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Pericles
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« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2020, 01:30:15 AM »

Coronavirus seems like it will have a big impact on the upcoming election. The government has had a strong response to it so far-with Jacinda Ardern taking some of the strongest measures in the world such as requiring all new arrivals in NZ to self-isolate a few days ago and just closed New Zealand's borders outright. The government announced a $12 billion stimulus package (as a sidenote, that package managed to slip in a 25% permanent increase in welfare benefits that in normal times would have been a big political story on its own and very controversial but got hardly any attention now). Simon Bridges got criticised a bit for coming across as too negative and politicising the issue too much. New Zealand so far has had a light impact from coronavirus, with 28 cases that are all overseas arrivals and no evidence of community transmission yet. However it will get worse and the Finance Minister has acknowledged there will be a recession.

The political impact of this is unclear. So far Jacinda Ardern's response has been very well-received from the public and yet again she has excelled in a crisis. A family member of mine who voted Labour last time was leaning National beforehand and now is very supportive of how Jacinda has handled it and is saying they'll definitely vote Labour. However, it's not clear if that sentiment will last until September with the economy going into recession. It's also possible that the election is delayed, here is an article on how that could work-https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/18-03-2020/the-nz-election-is-a-big-event-could-it-be-delayed-in-a-covid-19-world/ Given a lot of the voting is not in person on the day voting, sticking with the current date may be viable. Politically, it seems to me that the further we go the more memories of Jacinda's strong handling of this crisis fade and dissatisfaction with the now in recession economy come to the fore, so it could be better for Labour to have the election soon. However, public health and saving lives always comes first.
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Pericles
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« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2020, 09:44:18 PM »

There has been renewed speculation of a leadership change in the National Party this week. The spark was Simon Bridges' response to the government extending the level 4 lockdown through the weekend, basically he said the government "hasn't done the groundwork" on issues such as contact tracing and New Zealand's lockdown is too strict-he claims Australia has gotten similar health outcomes with a more relaxed lockdown but the economic cost is less there (honestly it's probably too early to tell and New Zealand's strategy of elimination seems slightly different from Australia's strategy of suppression). People did not take kindly to perceived political posturing right now. His Facebook post received unprecedented engagement by his standards, the problem for him was the vast majority of that engagement was negative (and often apparent National Party supporters claiming they supported Jacinda Ardern over Bridges on this). Bridges has often struck the wrong tone and said the wrong thing at the wrong time, and generally people just don't like him, this reinforces that pattern.

The next day, speculation arose in the media that a leadership coup was in the works with a ticket of Mark Mitchell (Rodney MP and 2018 leadership contender)/Paula Bennett (the current deputy leader).  This did originate from a left-wing blogger though, so it might not be true, but it's never a good sign. Reportedly, internal polls right now have National in the mid to low 30s, with Labour having received a big bounce from their handling of the pandemic (which is unsurprising given most governments are getting a bounce).

It doesn't seem like a coup will actually go ahead right now since playing internal politics in the middle of a pandemic is a bad look, but I wouldn't rule out Simon Bridges not making it to the election. And if he does, while the National Party brand so far remains strong the Simon Bridges brand is weak so it will be tough for him to win, especially given he's totally outmatched by his opponent on likability and personal popularity.
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Pericles
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« Reply #11 on: April 28, 2020, 08:47:22 PM »

What is the point of the existance of the NZ First when they will join a Labour Government?


NZ First is not a far-right party but is populist on both economic and social issues, though relatively centrist overall. The National Party is a pretty neoliberal party and that isn't a great fit for them. NZ First has stopped a lot of Labour's agenda-such as a water tax, capital gains tax and a repeal of the 3 strikes law-which I think is bad and I'd prefer just Labour and the Greens. However, that does appeal to a slice of the electorate who like to keep both parties in check, and they do still have a valid purpose imo.
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Pericles
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« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2020, 06:58:03 PM »

I don't know if you Kiwis know just how much some of us here in the United States envy you. For starters, you have a real leader at the head of your government...  Tongue

That reminds me of this exchange from the other day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pHM8ZT2lZo
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Pericles
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« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2020, 06:40:41 PM »

A Labour Party internal poll has leaked and ... WOW.

Labour-55%
National-29%
NZ First-6%
Green-5%
ACT-3%

Preferred Prime Minister (at least this is how I am interpreting the article);
Jacinda Ardern-65%
Simon Bridges-7%
Judith Collins-7%

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328854

This is even better for Labour than I expected. Maybe it is a bit rosy for Labour, but UMR does seem to have a good record and I remember their poll right before Jacinda Ardern took the Labour leadership in 2017 (those numbers were 42% National, 23% Labour, 16% NZ First, 15% Green). If the political landscape is remotely like this, it seems very hard for National to make up the gap. And combining the blocs makes it even worse for them-National & ACT are on 32% combined, Labour & the Greens are on 60% combined and Labour, NZ First and the Greens are on 66% combined (!).

Honestly, if it's really this bad I doubt Simon Bridges survives. The threshold usually cited for his leadership to be in danger (at least before Covid) was National being under 40%, under 30% simply wasn't imaginable. At this point, if National sees similar numbers (apparently they aren't showing their caucus internal polling lol) then they will have to ditch him, not even to win the election but for MPs (especially list MPs) to save their own seats. Taking this with a grain of salt but it is newsworthy.
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Pericles
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« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2020, 07:25:20 PM »

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.

To an extent yeah, but New Zealand has an election on September 19 and as the response has succeeded in largely eliminating the virus domestically that election is likely to go ahead. So this could be an exception as it's hard for such a bounce to wear off completely by then. If the US were less polarized and Trump had responded better such an effect could have taken place there too perhaps, though November is a bit further away.
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Pericles
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« Reply #15 on: April 30, 2020, 07:38:08 PM »

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.

Yeah Jami Lee Ross will lose his electorate, best case for him is his party gets like 1%.

With majority government, in 2011 and 2014 National came very close to it both times. In 2011 National was polling in the mid 50s before declining in the campaign to 51%, then a polling error and NZ First having a late surge to end up above the threshold resulted in National getting 47% instead. In 2002 Labour also was polling like it could get an overall majority, but the minor parties surged in the campaign and it ended up getting only 41% (National declined in the campaign too though and ended up on 21%. The tendency seems to be for voters to recoil at the end from giving one party a majority. Though maybe 2020 could be the first to go against this, just like how the second largest party hadn't formed a government until 2017.
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Pericles
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« Reply #16 on: April 30, 2020, 07:49:50 PM »

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.

To an extent yeah, but New Zealand has an election on September 19 and as the response has succeeded in largely eliminating the virus domestically that election is likely to go ahead.

Yeah I know which thread I'm responding to lol. The election though is four months away and it's likely the international situation will have changed, and it's very well possible the unusual circumstances that have boosted everyone's approval.

Ok right, so your basic argument is all these coronavirus bounces are extremely fleeting and will fade very quickly. Which is possible, but at least in certain situations it's perhaps more likely they fade a bit slower over a longer period and so in New Zealand's case wouldn't be entirely gone by September 19.
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Pericles
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« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2020, 01:21:43 AM »

Turns out that UMR poll was no outlier.



ACT is on 1.8% in this poll.

Labour have to be very, very strongly favoured to win the upcoming election now. It's very well deserved too, the government's response to Covid-19 has been excellent (another day of 0 new cases today and life is almost normal again) and Jacinda Ardern generally has been a great leader overall. 
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Pericles
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« Reply #18 on: May 18, 2020, 04:09:26 AM »

What would the FPTP seats look like if that was the result?

Well that is a 25.9% margin, so 33.5% change in the margin from the 2017 election result. In the 2017 election, there were 7 electorates (out of 71) in which National led Labour by a greater margin in the party vote. Epsom would also be retained by ACT, or more likely under FPP National would win it. So that's 8 seats out of 71. Note that Simon Bridges' electorate is not one of those 8. If we keep the seat count at 120, under FPP that share of seats comes to 13-14 seats in parliament, with Labour taking the rest. This is making a lot of assumptions of course, and the electorate boundaries have been changed a bit anyway for this election.

I don't think that such a margin is realistic. However, before coronavirus the most likely outcome was another Labour-NZ First-Green government, with a National-led government looking possible based on the polls (though Bridges was always outmatched by Jacinda). Now a Labour majority government has to be a real possibility (this has never happened under MMP). I expect a 'wasted vote' of 3-4% this time so around 48% of the vote would probably be enough for a majority. A Labour-Greens government is more viable too, though I am worried the Greens will have their vote cannibalized by Labour and so fall under the 5% threshold. National and ACT are about 16% behind where they need to be to form a government, so it doesn't seem particularly plausible to me that they'd make up the whole gap by September 19.
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Pericles
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« Reply #19 on: May 18, 2020, 11:57:27 PM »

I think poll #'s will tighten but unless Ardern does something really stupid, 25 point gap seems too large, but wouldn't be surprised if Labour only wins by 5-10 points.  Would be shocked if National got under 35% and even getting under 40% is pretty bad for them, but may happen.  Also lets remember I believe at this point in 2017, Labour was almost as far back, but they dumped Little and replaced with Ardern so any chance National dumps Bridges, who is a huge liability for party, and replaces with another leader which I would think would help.

That's pretty reasonable. In this poll, once you add in guaranteed support partners to each side, it is 62.0% for Labour and the Greens (they got 43.2% last time) and 32.4% for National and ACT (they got 44.9% last time). If you add in NZ First to that it's 64.7% for the governing parties (up 14.3% from 50.4% last time). Of course NZ First is below the threshold in this poll, so the Labour/Green vs National/ACT gap is the one to watch and that's just under 30 points. It is possible the Greens fall under the threshold if Labour cannibalizes too much of the left-wing vote. If Labour did end up with a 5 point lead over National that would still be a 12 point shift in the margin from 2017 and likely mean that with the Greens they're up by more like 10 points.

On one hand National are lucky that they have very little competition for the right-wing vote, so a nightmare scenario like 2014 for Labour (25.1%) or 2002 for National (20.9%) is less likely. However overall it's still a weakness as it makes it harder for them to actually form a government, as of course they painfully found out in 2017.
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Pericles
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« Reply #20 on: May 19, 2020, 04:05:33 PM »

The leadership challenge to Simon Bridges seems to be finally here.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121566701/simon-bridges-faces-challenge-to-his-leadership-from-mps-todd-muller-and-nikki-kaye--source

Despite Bridges' claims, it appears he does not currently have a majority in his caucus, but nor does any single challenger (Todd Muller, Judith Collins and Mark Mitchell being the current names considered).

The Colmar Brunton poll expected tomorrow will be interesting. I kind of hope it has National at like 36% to suck some momentum from the challenge. None of them come close to matching Jacinda, but the others would probably do a little better than Bridges.

The confidence vote is next Tuesday, so that'll be a fun day to watch.
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« Reply #21 on: May 19, 2020, 04:32:04 PM »

The leadership challenge to Simon Bridges seems to be finally here.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121566701/simon-bridges-faces-challenge-to-his-leadership-from-mps-todd-muller-and-nikki-kaye--source

Despite Bridges' claims, it appears he does not currently have a majority in his caucus, but nor does any single challenger (Todd Muller, Judith Collins and Mark Mitchell being the current names considered).

The Colmar Brunton poll expected tomorrow will be interesting. I kind of hope it has National at like 36% to suck some momentum from the challenge. None of them come close to matching Jacinda, but the others would probably do a little better than Bridges.

The confidence vote is next Tuesday, so that'll be a fun day to watch.

After having watched Labour undermine their leaders for years, this has become quite entertaining.

This was a National MP's actual reply to a constituent's email.
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« Reply #22 on: May 20, 2020, 01:00:51 AM »

It turns out we don't even have to wait until next Tuesday, the leadership vote is on Friday.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300016914/national-caucus-will-meet-on-friday-to-decide-simon-bridges-fate?rm=a

This seems like a smart move on Bridges' part to stop the challenge getting too much momentum.

Todd Muller has also publicly confirmed that he is challenging Bridges, saying in an email to the National caucus that "It is essential that National wins this election" and "I share the view of the majority of my colleagues that this is not possible under the current leadership." (The article is already out of date on this).

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« Reply #23 on: May 21, 2020, 01:23:54 AM »

This makes it even more brutal.
Quote
Preferred PM
- Jacinda Ardern: 63% (up 21%)
- Simon Bridges: 5% (down 6%)
- Judith Collins: 3% (steady)
- Winston Peters: 1% (down 2%)

Approval ratings
Jacinda Ardern +76
Simon Bridges -40
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« Reply #24 on: May 21, 2020, 06:37:16 PM »

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.
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