Voter support has remained fairly static since the election, with the coalition Government seemingly missing out on a honeymoon bounce in popularity.
Interest.co.nz’s polling average shows support for the parties in Parliament has been virtually unchanged since the October election, despite some noisy individual polls.
These outlier polls included a Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll showing the Act Party on 13.7% and a Talbot Mills poll putting Te Pāti Māori at almost 5%.
Both supposed swings were attributed to the news cycle surrounding Waitangi Day but were not replicated in other polls.
Support for the National Party has been at roughly 38% in the majority of recent polls, while Labour has held at around 27%. These numbers are the same as the final election result.
Act appears to have picked up a slither of extra support, now at 9.1% in our average, while New Zealand First has slipped back slightly to 5.8%.
The Green Party remains at a little over 11% and Te Pati Maori just below 4%.
The left and right coalitions have each picked up about one percentage point of support as poll respondents have seemingly switched over from unsuccessful minor parties.
While not bad news for any particular party, the coalition Government might feel disappointed that it has not received a post-election bounce in the polls.
Newly elected governments often experience a surge of public support once sworn into office. It happened for Labour in 2017 and 1999, as well as for National in 2008.
However, the Fourth National government found its support falling after winning the 1990 election in a landslide. It also faced difficult economic choices which proved unpopular.
The opportunity for a post-election bounce may have been lost by the lengthy coalition negotiations and the generally negative view of the country shared by senior ministers.
Popularity contest
Chris Hipkins has fallen in 1News Verian’s preferred prime minister poll but that metric heavily favors whoever is sitting in the role. The Labour leader led that poll until election day.
The Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll has also shown Christopher Luxon overtaking Hipkins as preferred prime minister following the election.
Luxon’s popularity numbers have also increased and he is now in positive territory with 11% net favorability, according to Taxpayers' Union-Curia.
Other coalition leaders are not so lucky. David Seymour was at -8% and Winston Peters at -22% even after a post-election bump.
The poll found a net approval rate for the coalition government was 4.5%, with roughly 35% disapproving, 40% approving and the rest ‘neutral’ or ‘unsure’.
It also asked a question about whether the country was headed in the right or wrong direction, a net 2% of respondents reportedly answered “right direction”.
These approval measures are a better indicator of re-election chances than the favorability or preferred prime minister numbers.
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