The media over the past few months has reported that Opportunity may be the kingmaker in this upcoming election, but the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll suggests otherwise.
Previous polls put Opportunity at 8%, over the 5% of votes needed to get them into parliament. Both Labour and National would need to form coalition deals with the party to form a government. Considering Christopher Luxon ruled out working with Opportunity, this put him under a fair bit of pressure – especially since National was polling at under 30%.
Now that Opportunity is polling at 5.7%, they’re just brushing that threshold needed to get those precious Parliament seats.
That being said, the apparent hit to Opportunity is nowhere near a win for National or Labour. Both parties are still polling dangerously low, with National at 28.8% and Labour at 29.3%. The combined vote for Labour and National – the “purple” vote – is at 58.1%, which is reletively low. ACT and Greens are the ones rising in the polls, with Greens polling at 12.5% and ACT polling at 8.8%.
With the polls fluctuating as they are, it’s hard to predict which way the election will go. Chris Hipkins said he was “certainly not happy” with the result on Breakfast, but maintained his belief that Labour is “going to win this election”.
Whether or not you believe him, the November election is certainly looking to be a very tight race.
