New polling shows overhang could hand the coalition a second term (and other news)

National has slipped in the latest polling, but its coalition partners gained enough to put coalition reelection within reach, Henry Oliver writes in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

National dropped three points to 29% in Tuesday’s 1News-Verian poll, 1News reports, while Act rose one to a term-high 12% and NZ First gained two to 10%. Opportunity, which National has (again and again) ruled out working with, fell one to 6%. The Greens slipped one to 15%, and Te Pāti Māori fell to 0.1%, though it is campaigning for electorate votes only. Labour was unchanged on 27% – the party's fifth consecutive poll in the upper twenties, down from 37% in April.

Luxon pulled clear as preferred prime minister, rising four to 24% (his best of the campaign so far) while Hipkins edged up one to 18%. The six-point gap is the widest in 1News polling this year.

The overhang 

This morning, the Herald launched an electorate model mapping the Herald-Motu poll of polls onto individual races, and with the possibility of an overhang essentially deciding the election in either direction, its projections are potentially as important as the party vote. National currently holds 49 seats (44 electorates and five on the list). On a party vote of 28.6% (according to the poll of polls), that would correspond to 34 seats in total. But the electorate model picks National losing only three electorates: 44 down to 41.

That would produce a seven-seat overhang, taking Parliament to 128 seats and giving the National-ACT-NZ First coalition 66 seats, comfortably past the 65 needed to govern the expanded parliament. The Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori bloc would hold 51.

The Herald’s Chris Knox notes this would be New Zealand’s first major party overhang. It is more likely now than when MMP began: there are 71 electorates today compared to 65 in 1996, five added for North Island population growth and one for the Māori electoral population.

Motu's Stuart Donovan cautions the model is “very much a starting point.” Several seats are excluded because of unique local dynamics – Te Tai Tokerau, where Mariameno Kapa-Kingi is standing for a different party and a shock poll last week put the Greens' Hūhana Lyndon in contention; and Te Tai Tonga and Tāmaki Makaurau, where independents are standing. Hutt South has the smallest predicted margin at 0.4 percentage points, down from 3.1 in 2023 – with Chris Bishop defending a 1,332-vote margin against Ginny Andersen for the fourth time. Knox notes the model still has National returning in Tāmaki despite Brooke van Velden’s 2023 win there, but readers can override individual seats to see the effect.

Even if Opportunity falls below the 5% threshold, the model’s outcome is unchanged: National no longer has an overhang, but the same coalition still governs.

In other news

Winston Peters is defending a party ad blaming the sinking of HMNZS Manawanui on “woke b******t,” RNZ reports (the censoring is NZ First’s not ours or RNZ’s). The ad shows Ron Mark, a former defence minister, saying DEI had gone “too far” and the sinking was “evidence of that.” Peters said it was “clear as daylight” Commander Yvonne Gray was hired through a DEI programme: “We are not against the promotion of seriously qualified women – never have been – but in this case, she was not qualified.” Christopher Luxon said Mark appeared to be trying to “cosplay Pete Hegseth” but did not rule out appointing him defence minister. 

In other NZ First news, social media posts by two Upper Harbour candidates show both attacking political leaders, The Post’s Amelia Wade reports. NZ First’s Bernadette Soares wrote in 2024 that “Winston has turned out to be a slimy traitor,” replied to a post calling for a ban on Palestinian refugees with “No immigration from terrorist nations,” and in 2025 invited British far-right activist Tommy Robinson to New Zealand. Act’s Panos Patros thanked someone who called Dame Jacinda Ardern a “fascist witch,” and wrote that Labour had been “openly pro terrorist.” NZ First called the questions "some sort of pathetic joke" and said candidates had changed their views. Seymour said some comments “might seem intemperate” but “we shouldn't rush to judge.”

Nicola Willis has called on Chris Hipkins to say “how many of the Green Party's new taxes he is willing to adopt,” the Herald’s Jamie Ensor reports, arguing the only way he forms a government by Christmas is “making serious concessions” to Chlöe Swarbrick. Asked what National would concede to Act and NZ First, Luxon said the situation “is quite different,” citing three budgets within operating allowances.

More than 200 turned out at Rippon Vineyard for an election forum in Wanaka, RNZ reports. Opportunity’s Kayla Kingdon-Bebb said councils had been “a bit of a punching bag” and called for an end to unfunded mandates. NZ First’s Michael Laws was booed for saying there was “nothing wrong with extractive mining at all.” Labour’s Damien O'Connor said 80% of new health money had gone to the private sector; Seymour called ideology “the biggest impediment” to fixing healthcare in New Zealand. Michael Laws pitched NZ First as “the conscience and the heart of a centre-right coalition” – Seymour offered Act as “the brain.”

Documents obtained under the OIA show associate housing minister Tama Potaka originally planned no maximum repayment timeframe, instead requiring interest after six months – a proposal seniors minister Casey Costello agreed with, Stuff reports. The policy changed after a meeting with Chris Bishop, leading to last month’s nine-month limit. Peters said last week he never agreed with the reforms, a month after they were announced. Labour is promising a three-month period for all existing residents, about 56,000 people.