Christopher Luxon says he is ‘absolutely not’ considering resigning after horror poll
Friday, 6 March 2026
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he is “absolutely not” considering resigning following a horror poll that had his party on 28.4%.
Luxon batted down the rumour that he was considering a resignation in a hastily organised interview with Newstalk ZB on Friday evening.
He said he had the unanimous backing of his MPs and was not going anywhere.
The new poll from the Taxpayers’ Union/Curia has National on its worst result since Christopher Luxon became leader - just 28.4%.
Read more:
National in turmoil: Luxon on the brink as party searches for a reset
Christopher Luxon’s Iran problem: Between Trump and the rules-based order
The numbers leaked out to media before the poll’s release as several MPs and staffers were discussing it on Thursday evening. It is a drop of close to three points on the numbers from the same pollster’s February poll.
The poll showed:
Labour: 34.4% (+0.3 on the month before)
National: 28.4% (-2.9)
Greens: 10.5 (+0.2)
NZ First: 9.8 (-0.8)
ACT: 7.5% (+0.8)
If repeated on election night the poll would result in a narrow Labour-led Government.
Curia is also the National Party’s private pollster and is run by long time party apparatchik David Farrar, meaning National MPs lend serious weight to its numbers that they might not for another pollster.
The poll also suggests that Labour is ahead of National on the issue of “not raising taxes” - likely a result of the spat over the levy for an LNG import terminal.
The poll was conducted from Sunday March 1 to Tuesday March 3 2026, meaning it also takes in Luxon’s fumbled response to questions about the conflict in Iran.
Polls are generally shared with parties ahead of being released publicly and it seems this one had got out widely, with MPs and staffers aware of it on Thursday night and able to confirm that 28% figure to The Post before its release.
National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis told Newstalk ZB it was “not a good number”.
“If that was the number National got on the actual election, that would not be an acceptable result. We have to do better than that,” Willis said.
“I am not happy with that number. I don’t think our National Party team would be happy with that number. I don’t think the prime minister would be satisfied with that number.”
Willis admitted it had not been a great week for the prime minister.
National has dropped below 30% once before in the poll last year, but only to 29.6%.
The new poll has Luxon’s personal popularity in the “preferred prime minister” stakes just below his opponent Chris Hipkins - 21% to 22.7%.
It had 50.6% believing the country was heading the “wrong direction” compared to just 35.5% saying it was heading the right direction.
On individual issues Labour was ahead on health, poverty, inflation, housing, safety, and not increasing taxes.
National was ahead on economy and spending.
Luxon has faced off and on questions around his leadership since Labour started to consistently outrank the party in polls in mid-2025.
It is likely that this new poll, which has the party on numbers similar to that which saw Simon Bridges rolled from the leadership in 2020, would restart some of those conversations, both within the party and outside it.
NZ First leader Winston Peters, asked about National’s numbers, told Ryan Bridge on Friday morning: “It is not good, is it?”
“You can’t say anything else. It is not the end of everything. But those of us who are not in the National Party, on this matter, on the outside, it is not good, no.”
The poll comes after a rough week for Luxon, in which he stumbled while trying to explain New Zealand’s position in relation to the US strikes on Iran on Monday.
After saying New Zealand would support “any action” that stopped Iran getting a nuclear weapon, he was asked if that would mean carpet bombing, and responded: “Well, I mean, we obviously understand – we’re not saying that, what we’re saying is, we understand there’s – I don’t know how to be any clearer guys.”
He walked back that answer on Tuesday morning.
The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.