New poll paints grim picture for the coalition government

Tuesday, 22 July 2025

A new poll has presented bad news for the coalition government.

A majority of people believe the country is heading in the wrong direction and that the economy is in bad shape.

The numbers show the left bloc would be able to form a government if an election were held tomorrow.

A new poll shows that most New Zealanders believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.

The Post is reporting the results of a new Talbot Mills poll, in which 51% said they believed the country was on the wrong track.

The results paint a grim picture for the coalition government, with 76% saying the economy was “not so good” or “poor”, while 37% expected things to worsen.

Only 23% of those polled said the economy was in “good” or “excellent” shape.

The Government’s performance was judged harshly by poll respondents, with only 38% believing they deserved a second term. On the other hand, 48% said it was time for another party to govern.

The poll was good news for the left bloc in Parliament, with the results showing that if an election were held tomorrow, the left would hold the balance of power.

The numbers showed Labour on 35%, the Greens on 12% and Te Pāti Māori on 3.8%. For the coalition, National was on 32%, ACT 8%, and NZ First 7%.

Translated into seats in the House of Representatives, these numbers would give the left bloc 63 seats, enough to form a government. The right coalition would have 58 seats and would be out of power.

As for who people want to lead the country, the preferred prime minister race is proving tight, with Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins neck and neck on 24%.

Talbot Mills is the Labour Party’s pollster, and the poll is for their commercial clients.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins called the results “encouraging” but said they still had a lot of work to do.

“Our goal is to win the next election, and that means every day between now and then, we’re focused on doing what we need to do in order to win back the support of New Zealanders,” he said.

Hipkins said there could be a one-term government as things were “getting worse” for New Zealand families under the coalition.

Meanwhile, ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour pointed to more circumstantial reasons as an explanation for the National-led coalition’s poor approval ratings.

“It’s the middle of winter, the economy is tough. It’s not that surprising that people are down on the government,” he said.

Seymour though said he was adamant public sentiment would shift ahead of the next general election, in late-2026.

“They’ll [the public] also be judging us on the results of our policies in a year’s time, I think the work we’re doing now: regulatory change, saving money, spreading a bit of positivity, is a very good contrast with the opposition, who’ve got lots of criticism but no responsibility for getting us in this mess and no ideas of their own.”

The poll was taken across the first 10 days of July and surveyed a representative sample of 1090 people, 18 years and older. The results have a margin of error of 3.1%.

Recent polls have shown the gap between the coalition and left bloc shrinking, with Labour out-polling National in four of the last six polls.