Three new polls, side by side – and the election story they foretell
Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon, thinking about the margins.
Warning: yes, this post does discuss the overhang.
The Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union has just been published, and it could hardly be closer. Based on the numbers presented, it would deliver a dead heat between National, Act and NZ First on one side, and the four parties Curia defines as the “Opposition Bloc” (Labour, Greens, Opportunity and Te Pāti Māori) on the other.
That tie, of course – at least in the 60 vs 60 it presents – is highly unlikely to happen, thanks to the poltergeist of the 2026 campaign: the overhang.
More on that in a second. First, let’s line up the three last polls from three major pollsters together.
Chuck those averages into the MMP calculator (and award Te Pāti Māori one electorate, for the purposes of the exercise) and you’d be left with the following seat breakdown:
- Labour: 36
- National: 34
- Greens: 18
- Act: 12
- NZ First: 11
- Opportunity: 8
- Te Pāti Māori: 1
The current coalition would have 57 seats of 120 between them, needing the support of Opportunity to form a government.
Labour, the Greens and TPM would have a combined 55 – again needing Opportunity’s support.
It’s highly, highly unlikely that those numbers would materialise, however. TPM is running an electorate-only strategy, urging supporters to give their party vote to Labour or the Greens, thereby engineering an overhang to provide a disproportionate advantage to the left. Polling suggests they should win at least three of seven Māori seats.
On the right, an energetic campaign with a cast of colourful characters led by Harry Mowbray is seeking to orchestrate an overhang of its own. In a nutshell, by exploiting an unusual set of circumstances that could already deliver National a caucus exclusively made up of electorate MPs – more MPs, indeed, than they would have had if the party vote had been the sole determining factor.
All of which could mean the election comes down to warring overhangs – which you can file alongside girthy nibs as a phrase I did not expect to be typing in 2026.
Below, a table that captures the ways the two potential overhangs could prove decisive, based on the polling average above.
Along the top, the total electorate seats won by National; down the side, the number of electorate seats won by TPM.
The different combinations throw up three scenarios: one is the existing coalition being able to form a majority – for example if they had a two-seat majority, that would be marked as R+2. Another is Opportunity holding the balance of power between two blocks and able to crown either. Here you’ll see a crown emoji. Finally, there’s the scenario in which the right bloc could only form a majority with the support of Opportunity, but the left and Opportunity would not have the numbers to reach a majority together. That appears as Opp 👑 (R).
If nothing else, this shows how fine the margins are.
There is still one poll to come, by Freshwater for the Post, before election day.
Toby Manhire
Toby Manhire is editor-at-large at The Spinoff. He loves to cast a pod, whether it's Gone By Lunchtime, At Large or Juggernaut. He is a former editor of The Spinoff and has worked as a journalist in NZ and the UK since the last millennium.
