Poll of Polls: Opportunity on cusp of 5% as coalition decline continues
The prospect of the National-led coalition being returned to power after this year’s election continues to decline, according to the latest NZ Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls model, which also predicts an almost 50% probability of the Opportunity Party reaching the 5% threshold to enter Parliament.
The model takes into account recent polls, including this week’s RNZ Reid Research poll.
Run on Tuesday, the model predicts a 62.9% probability that National, New Zealand First and Act could form the Government after November 7.
That’s down from a 69.9% probability the last time the model was run on Saturday, which had itself been reduced from the June 23 model when the probability came in at 76.4%.
However, the probability of a Labour-led coalition with the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori being able to form the Government was just 7.6%, slightly up from 7.2% on Saturday.
Opportunity’s chances of breaking into Parliament are on the rise, increasing from a 39% to a 46.6% probability that the party receives more than 5% of the party vote.
The model’s average predicted party vote for Opportunity came in at 4.99%, and as such, on average it is not allocated any seats in the House.
The likelihood of a National, NZ First, Act and Opportunity combination getting 61 or more seats was 88.1%, slightly down on Saturday’s 88.7%.
The left bloc’s chances increased to 28.2% with the addition of Opportunity.
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong has claimed she would be open to working with either major party, however, National leader Christopher Luxon has stated that supporting Opportunity appeared akin to supporting Labour and the Greens.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has also suggested voting for Opportunity wouldn’t guarantee a change of government.
The NZ Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls uses data from public polls and other private or less frequent polls and inputs them into a computer model using polling data going back to 2014.
It uses this data to run 4000 election simulations, which are used to form probabilities of various election outcomes.
Labour led the model’s average predicted party vote with 31.2%. National trailed on 29.4%.
New Zealand First’s average party vote came in at 13.5%, the Green Party on 10.5%, Act on 7.1% and Te Pāti Māori on 2.3%.
Te Pāti Māori would secure three seats on that number, assuming it won at least one electorate. The model assumed no overhang was caused.
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.