Coalition parties fall behind in latest poll

Sunday, 19 April 2026

The governing parties have narrowly lost the support of voters, according to the latest political poll.

This new TVNZ Verian poll has landed at a crucial time for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. He went into the weekend under a shroud of uncertainty, thanks to National Party MPs discussing whether they needed to take action and change their leader given the party’s falling support.

This poll has National at 30%. At first glance, that’s not as bad as the two other polls to come out earlier this month. The Taxpayers Union Curia Poll had National at 29.8% and the Talbot Mills corporate poll showed National with 29% support.

However, National has a 3 in front of it because of a reporting difference with the TVNZ Verian Poll. According to 1 News political editor Maiki Sherman, the actual result was 29.7% - but the TVNZ poll has rounded all of the parties’ results.

Here are the results:

• Labour in the lead at 37%.

• National at 30%.

• The Greens at 11%.

• NZ First at 10%.

• ACT at 7%.

• The Opportunity Party at 3%, below the 5% threshold to get into Parliament.

• And Te Pāti Māori at 2%… reliant on winning electorate seats.

Luxon’s personal popularity has also taken a dive.

Just 16% of those polled said Christopher Luxon was their preferred prime minister.

That is a 4 point drop for Luxon in the preferred prime minister stakes, and Labour leader Chris Hipkins is ahead of him. Although Hipkins’ popularity is still relatively low, at just 19%.

National MP Chris Bishop surfaced as the preferred prime minister for some. He arrived with 2% of those polled naming him as their preferred prime minister.

The other results: Winston Peters at 12%, Chloe Swarbrick at 6%, and David Seymour at 4%.

National MPs Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford both polled at 1% each, on par with former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, Labour MP Kieran McAnulty and Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke.

Bishop has often been speculated as a potential contender to Luxon. But he has spent the last few days ruling out a caucus coup against his leader.

Last week, Luxon and other National Party ministers who spoke out to support him said they weren’t too worried about the polls because - although National was down - they showed the coalition would remain in power.

The earlier polls did show that the coalition had the numbers to stay in government, thanks mostly to surging support for New Zealand First.

The Talbot Mills corporate poll, released on Friday, had NZ First at 15% - a massive rise since the party returned to Government at 2023’s election.

But the TVNZ Verian poll had NZ First at just 10%.

In the TVNZ poll, the coalition parties had combined support of 47%. But the Opposition parties, with Labour, Te Pāti Māori and the Greens were at 50%.

If these numbers were replicated at the election, a Labour-led coalition would have the numbers to govern.

All of these polls were reported with a margin of error of 3.1%.