What three years of polling data tells us about Election 2026
Saturday, 20 June 2026
National rode an angry electorate into office in 2023. But three years of polling data from Freshwater Strategy reveals the public has simply turned that rage onto the coalition. National Affairs Editor Andrea Vance analyses the numbers.
ANALYSIS: Over the past couple of weeks, election season has lurched into life.
Last week Labour uncloaked its first policy in six months at a bustling Auckland train station. Leader Chris Hipkins spoke about a proposed public transport cap in between the rumble of arriving trains and station announcements.
Flanked by babies and expectant parents, the party then followed up with a midwifery clinic as the backdrop for its maternal health package.
And National summoned journalists to the Beehive on a Sunday to unveil a black dossier purporting to expose Labour's alleged fiscal black hole.
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The Post/Freshwater Strategy Poll: Coalition clings, National bleeds
Who is up and who is down as Parliament wraps up for the year?
The optics were carefully chosen and the messages meticulously crafted.
But you want to understand the unadulterated chaos of New Zealand politics right now, look past the carefully staged press conferences and focus on the cold, hard reality of the data.
It suggests voters remain deeply unconvinced that either side has a convincing answer to the problems facing the country.
Looking across the full sweep of polling conducted by Freshwater Strategy for The Post and Infrastructure NZ from the pre-election days of 2023 to the winter of 2026, it is clear we have entered a parallel universe where the traditional laws of political gravity no longer apply.
Under the old rules of MMP, shifts were generally and somewhat predictable.
Governments were generally granted a multi-term license to operate, and minor coalition partners were chewed up and spat out after a period in office.
But the last three years have blown up the playbook. We are living through a hyper-accelerated, mercurial and jaded political cycle that left the election victory of the current coalition utterly ground to bits in less than a year.
The optimism deficit
If you want to understand the root of policy announcements, attack lines and campaign launches, start with one simple question: whether New Zealanders think the country is heading in the right direction.
The answer is increasingly bleak.
When voters went to the polls in October 2023, nearly two-thirds of the electorate (64%) believed New Zealand was on the wrong track.
After years of lockdowns, inflation and economic uncertainty, voters opted for a change of government.
That mood improved briefly after the election. By November 2024, the proportion of voters who thought the country was heading in the wrong direction had fallen to 48%, the lowest level we recorded during the current parliamentary term.
But the respite was short-lived.
Over the following 18 months, pessimism steadily returned.
The wrong track figure climbed to 49% by June 2025, reached 54% by October, and now sits at 57%. Just 27% of voters now believe the country is heading in the right direction.
The erosion of the corporate CEO advantage
In late 2024, the two Chrises were tied in the race to be preferred prime minister. (Hipkins on 42%, Luxon on 41%.)
But over the first half of 2025, Hipkins began to edge ahead. By mid-year he had opened a modest but clear lead (43% to 37%) which remained through to the end of the year (45% to 39%).
By early 2026, the divergence had become more pronounced.
Hipkins extended his lead to its widest point in the cycle in February (46% to 34%), before it narrowed slightly again in the most recent polling, leaving him still ahead, but in a more consolidated position than a year earlier.
The shift has been most visible on the attributes that once defined Luxon’s political appeal.
In the early months of the Government, he held a clear advantage on questions of fiscal competence and decision-making, the business leader traits that underpinned his pitch to voters.
By mid-2026, that advantage has largely evaporated.
Voters are now closely divided on which leader is better able to manage public money, and the managerial authority that once surrounded Luxon has weakened.
His personal favourability has also slipped into negative territory, reflecting a more general cooling in his standing with the electorate.
Hipkins’ political recovery
Hipkins’ trajectory over the same period has moved in the opposite direction.
After Labour’s defeat in 2023, he inherited a party in political freefall and entered the parliamentary term with little obvious room for recovery.
But his consistent advantage over Luxon as preferred prime minister is underpinned by stronger ratings on attributes such as empathy and understanding of household pressures.
Where Luxon’s appeal has softened around managerial competence, Hipkins has strengthened on relational and emotional measures.
The result is an unusual post-election reversal.
Usually, when a party gets completely hollowed out at the polls, the defeated leader is marched out the caucus room door.
Following National’s historic floor in the 2002 election, it staged a massive, rapid resurrection to almost win the treasury benches back in 2005.
But the distinction is that National achieved its rapid comeback because it ruthlessly rolled Bill English for Don Brash in late 2003.
The outlier
If Hipkins’ recovery is impressive, Winston Peters is playing the game on an entirely different level.
Under the traditional logic of MMP, a ‘curse’ befalls minor parties that enter coalition government once they are associated with the decisions of the senior partner.
History offers plenty of examples. ACT was reduced to a single seat following its time in government after 2011, while the Alliance effectively collapsed after its experience in the early 2000s.
That pattern has not held in this term. NZ First narrowly returned to Parliament after scraping past the 5% threshold in 2023.
But instead of fading within government, Peters has expanded the party’s support base.
By mid-2026, it is polling at 12%, effectively doubling its share of the vote.
Peters holds a national net favourability rating of -4.2.
While still underwater, that places him among the stronger-performing leaders in an increasingly hostile political environment.
Peters' rating is substantially better than Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's net -27.9, and ACT leader David Seymour's -21.7.
Part of his resilience lies in positioning. Peters frames NZ First as a political handbrake within the coalition, critical of aspects of government policy while still remaining inside it. That dual role has allowed the party to benefit from being both insider and outsider at the same time.
But it also reflects a broader change in how political messages travel.
The media environment that once forced minor coalition partners into a dominant narrative has become increasingly fragmented. Audiences now consume political information through a mix of traditional outlets and curated feeds.
That shift has allowed Peters to maintain distinct messaging channels and sustain a supporter base that is mistrustful of legacy media and less exposed, less influenced by the usual Beltway narratives and dynamics that weaken junior coalition partners in government.
The result runs counter to the established expectations of MMP politics - a party that has not only survived its return to government, but even expanded within it.
Squeezed in an economic vice
The speed and intensity of the current political cycle is being driven by a single, persistent force: the cost of living.
It has remained the dominant issue for voters since before the 2023 election. At that time, 65% of the electorate identified it as a top priority.
Three years on, that figure has barely shifted, sitting at 63% in mid-2026.
The stability of that number reflects lived experience. The underlying pressure on household budgets has not materially eased.
Our data points to a significant share of households remaining under sustained financial strain.
Around 45% report having to cut back on essentials or rely on debt to meet basic living costs, including utilities and housing-related expenses.
Over time, the public attribution of responsibility has also shifted.
In the earlier stages of the inflation cycle, many voters slated rising prices to external factors such as the Covid 19 pandemic and global economic conditions.
But by 2026, they had started to put the blame elsewhere. A growing share of voters now identify the current National-led coalition as primarily responsible for ongoing economic pressure, ahead of the legacy of the previous Labour government.
A majority of voters (58%) are not confident about the Government's plan to achieve economic growth. That’s up from 49% a year ago.
Government responses have struggled to shift those perceptions.
The May 2025 Growth Budget was met with scepticism, with a majority of voters saying it would make little or no difference to their cost of living.
Concerns also extended beyond its economic impact, with many respondents expressing unease about the scale and direction of public service changes.
Budget 2026 was anchored by a single, defining promise from Finance Minister Nicola Willis: a reduction of 8700 public service roles over three years, framed as a return of the state workforce to its long-term historical scale.
A clear majority of voters across the political spectrum said they believe New Zealand has too many ministries and departments. Where consensus broke down was on how that reform should be delivered.
The Budget’s reliance on large-scale workforce reductions combined with a shift towards artificial intelligence and automated systems was contentious. More voters opposed the use of AI for cost-cutting purposes than supported it.
Neither Budget produced the political reset the Government may have hoped for.
What has not changed is the underlying voter anger that continues to define the political cycle - regardless of who holds power.
Freshwater Strategy interviewed n=1,038 eligible voters in New Zealand, aged 18+ online, between June 5-11. Margin of Error +/- 3%. Data are weighted to be representative of New Zealand voters.
The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll is funded by Infrastructure NZ to encourage debate about issues that are important to the future of New Zealand.