Christopher Luxon staying put despite horror poll
Saturday, 7 March 2026
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is digging in his heels in the face of a dire result from his own pollster.
Luxon looked to douse quickly spreading speculation he was “considering his position” following the poll, which had his party at just 28.4% support. He had an unscheduled interview with Newstalk ZB on Friday evening to say he was staying put, following a low-key day in Auckland with no media appearances.
“The only thing I'm considering is the future of our kids and our grandkids, and that's why I came to politics,” Luxon told the broadcaster.
“I have the full support of my team and my caucus.”
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But Luxon’s insistence that he will remain as leader with the full support of his caucus is unlikely to kill the widespread speculation that his leadership is on borrowed time.
Friday’s disastrous poll was done for the Taxpayers’ Union by polling company Curia, which also conducts National’s private polling.
The poll showed Labour returning to Government with a narrow majority and had National’s worst result since Luxon became leader, and the worst public poll result since 2021.
It would see National lose 13 MPs if repeated on election night.
One MP who spoke to The Post said there was a “decent chance” leadership chatter would start again in the days following the poll.
The phones were running hot within the National caucus and wider party after the poll, with sources telling The Post that his leadership was untenable.
Sources said while some senior figures were backing him, many MPs who faced losing their seat had accepted that a narrative about an improving economy that they had pushed over the summer was no longer realistic. Without an economic recovery, Luxon had little left to anchor his leadership.
That Luxon felt forced to front publicly to quell speculation that he was about to resign was in itself a huge break from Luxon’s traditional strategy of refusing to comment on the polls at all.
One MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, insisted here was no moves afoot to remove Luxon.
“No-one’s calling me,” the MP said.
“The backbench is still aligned. There’s lots of positive reinforcement - stay the course, reform takes time.”
Another MP suggested that the party should remember how badly turfing a leader out in 2020 had gone for the party.
But there was little positive affirmation for Luxon in conversations with National Party MPs and staffers.
The poll was bad enough that the pollster, long-time National Party apparatchik David Farrar, said he uttered the word “f…” upon seeing it.
But Farrar said it was not comparable to some of the polls he had conducted for the party in 2002, when it was on track for its worst-ever election result.
“This is not a great poll for National, but it’s still neck-in-neck for Government. In 2002 it was absolutely impossible.”
He said that while it would be “tough” for National to not poll as high as it used to, people needed to realise that “we’re not in the days where ACT was a 1% party”.
“It’s a bad poll. Get over it. You get bad polls sometimes.”
Luxon appeared with Simeon Brown at an electorate event in Auckland on Friday morning before being seen in public around his Botany constituency.
The poll was conducted from Sunday March 1 to Tuesday March 3, meaning it took in Luxon’s fumbled response to questions about the conflict in Iran on Monday.
It was shared with the political parties in the poll on Thursday night and the National number was rapidly on the lips of several MPs and staffers.
Luxon sought to downplay the significance of the poll on Friday evening, saying it did not match with the party’s private polling - which he suggested was processed in the UK.
“The only polling I look at is the one that we do internally for ourselves and and that's stuff that we actually get processed overseas, actually, to be honest, because there's skills that we need to process the data.”
He also insisted he had the full backing of his caucus to remain leader.
But even one of Luxon’s closest lieutenants, deputy leader Nicola Willis, acknowledged on Newstalk ZB that the polling was bad for National.
“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.”
She said it had been a tough week for the Prime Minister, but he had performed well in Government and had kept the coalition together.
NZ First leader Winston Peters, asked about National’s numbers, told Ryan Bridge on Friday morning: “It is not good, is it?”
ACT leader David Seymour said the poll didn’t change anything about his job.