The battle for rural New Zealand: Is National under pressure?

Sunday, 14 June 2026

Fieldays is a home crowd for National - but with NZ First on the rise, it could face tighter competition for the rural vote at November’s election. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.

At the end of a row of stalls at Fieldays, dubbed ‘Coalition Corner’ by some MPs, all political differences are put aside.

National, ACT and New Zealand First’s tents are all next to one another, with MPs from each standing around having a chat - not just with punters but with one another.

For those only used to watching the theatre of parliamentary question time, seeing politicians interacting like this might be alien. But Fieldays brings its own type of political showmanship, with crisp suits traded for puffer jackets, swandris and boots (though National’s Matt Doocey was seen wearing a white shirt and blazer).

But make no mistake, the election campaign is in swing - and beneath this convivial atmosphere, a battle for New Zealand’s heartland is bubbling.

While National considers Fieldays a home crowd, in recent elections the rural vote has increasingly opened up. Both ACT and NZ First are jostling for their own slice of the pie.

Labour is traditionally less popular. A dispute over whether the party had failed to book a stall at Fieldays became a source of amusement for coalition MPs, who seized on it as evidence the party still struggles to connect with rural voters - something leader Chris Hipkins disputed.

Federated Farmers’ boss Wayne Langford told the Sunday Star-Times that NZ First has seen a significant jump in the group’s own internal polling - even within the last 12 months.

The last time Federated Farmers’ published its polling - in June last year - 54% of survey respondents said they would vote National, 19% said they would vote ACT, and 8% would vote NZ First. Labour was on 3% and the Greens just 2%.

While Langford wouldn’t disclose the latest numbers, and the group no longer publicly published its polling data, he said Winston Peters’ party had now leapfrogged ACT to become the second-most popular among those polled.

“What we’ve seen from our polling is that the National Party stays relatively stable, it’s the two other parties … that are going to be going hard I think. But at the same time, the Nats will definitely be wanting some more of that rural vote back,” said Langford.

“[The parties are] pretty aware of where they’re sitting in the polling … I think we’re seeing NZ First on a bit of a rise at the moment and we’re just waiting for ACT to fire a few shots.”

National is outwardly remaining confident about its backing from the farming community, and its ability to keep its coalition partners at bay.

A large contingent of National MPs, led by prime minister Christopher Luxon, were some of the first to descend on Fieldays on Wednesday. The PM spent Thursday there as well, in contrast to other party leaders that made shorter visits.

“We are getting Wellington out of farming,” Luxon told reporters. “We’re a party that backs farmers, we understand it - we’ve got a big agricultural caucus that shapes a lot of our policy thinking. I think if you’re in agriculture, it’s a two tick blue campaign.”

Earlier, against the clink-clinking of cutlery on plates in the Fieldays’ Function Centre, he rolled out the first of several farming-centric announcements, $143 million in funding for projects to encourage more flexible and productive use of land.

Later, he popped by the Federated Farmers’ Rural Advocacy Hub - effectively a town square where politicians can be asked questions from the public - where the ‘campaign Luxon’ emerged, inviting every question asker to divulge their favourite karaoke song, and revealing he and his wife Amanda are watching the latest season of Clarkson’s Farm in 15-minute increments due to his busy work schedule (“no spoilers”).

On Thursday, he was out among the punters, at one point hopping on a golf cart (which he said reminded him of the Pope-mobile) to get through the crowd.

Despite this happy-go-lucky performance, National's grip on the rural vote is facing a fresh challenge. While one National MP speculated that NZ First was appealing more to the “tin foil hats” than farmers, that’s not what the data suggests.

In April, when NZ First was polling at about 13%, Curia pollster David Farrar noted that the party was over-performing in both towns (20%) and rural communities (24%).

Political commentator Ben Thomas said the rural vote had been competitive since 2020, when ACT snaffled up much of National’s lost vote in farming communities. With NZ First’s current surge, it’s game on between the coalition.

“The common wisdom is that New Zealand First does well in rural areas, but it's not from the farmers, it's from the farm workers and the suppliers and the towns. Then in 2023, both New Zealand First and ACT did pretty well in the rural seats,” he said.

The last time NZ First were polling at these levels was back in 1996, “so there is definitely very heated competition”.

NZ First’s deputy leader Shane Jones said there were “big outstanding issues” in the rural economy that went beyond farming, saying there needed to be more investment in services and infrastructure.

“Whether we like it or not, the Crown has got to be prepared to open up the cheque book. I think NZ First of the three centre-right parties has got more of a willingness [to do that],” he told the Star-Times.

National had taken the farming constituency for granted “for a long period of time”, he added, saying that while the “the tide has ebbed and flowed between NZ First and the farming community” this time around things were different.

“I don’t doubt the effort that the ACT Party are putting into it,” he said, adding with a smile that “The ACT Party believe they are a bigger threat [to National].”

Outgoing ACT MP and proud farmer Mark Cameron said both National and NZ First were “playing catch-up” with the rural constituency. National in particular was “missing in action” in 2020, the year ACT saw its highest electoral results in history.

He said NZ First could fall into the same trap as Labour when it came to over-promising and under-delivering. “It’s not for me to speak to their policy announcements and whether they can pay for it … but we’ve seen fiascos with the [Wellington to Picton] ferries,” he said.

“We’ve got to be more honest with the electorate about what we can pay for and what we can’t. It’s going to be tough love … now that’s the bit I’d say to NZ First.”

Beyond the friendly barbs, there are differences of opinion on more contentious issues that look to set the scene for November’s election. National has loudly touted the Government’s success in securing a free trade deal with India, but NZ First is vocally opposed. One National MP believed NZ First had “read the tea leaves wrong” on the issue, but Jones simply described it as “political posturing” and doubted the economic benefits from the agreement.

On the Paris climate accord, however, both ACT and NZ First are calling for New Zealand to withdraw - the former reiterating that position at Fieldays as part of a suite of climate policies. Luxon said it would be a mistake, emphasising that the Government had chosen not to do anything drastic.

“Our government - our coalition government - has decided to stay in Paris, because actually it would just penalise and punish our farmers tremendously,” he told reporters, deferring when asked about “jitters” from ACT and NZ First.

Both ACT and NZ First have been fighting each other to be “more hard line” when it came to New Zealand’s international commitments around climate change, said Thomas.

“That's an area where [they] are trying to appeal to the rural vote … I think it's certainly going to be a tough three-way fight.”

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