The National Party’s popularity problem that just won’t go away

Tuesday, 14 July 2026

OPINION: Like a bad smell, poor polling has followed National Party leader Christopher Luxon all the way to his holiday in Hawaii.

National has fallen 2.1 percentage points to 28.7% in Tuesday’s RNZ-Reid Research poll - the party’s fourth consecutive decline in the series and its weakest result since Luxon become leader in November 2021.

The result is not unique to this poll: while other numbers have shifted around over the year, support for National has hovered around the 29% mark in most of the public opinion polling this year.

Despite Luxon and his deputy Nicola Willis saying “party vote National” ad nauseam and a fair whack of well-received policy, voters are still looking elsewhere. It’s a problem that just doesn’t seem to be budging.

Read more:

• RNZ poll: National hits new low under Luxon, Opportunity nears Parliament

• ‘Haven’t given them any thought’: PM dismisses Opportunity as a vote for the left following poll

• Christopher Luxon says he is ‘absolutely not’ considering resigning after horror poll

Though Tuesday’s poll result would return the coalition to power, it’s by the narrowest possible majority of 61 seats - and National would be in a much weaker position than it has been this term.

National won 38.1% of the party vote in the 2023 election - heads and shoulders above Labour (26.9%), the Greens (11.6%), ACT (8.6%), New Zealand First (6.1%) and Te Pāti Māori (3.1%).

Its 48 seats this term would shrink to just 36 seats if Tuesday’s RNZ-Reid Research poll was replicated on the election night on November 7. That’s a loss of a quarter of its MPs.

While Luxon deserves some credit for managing the coalition strains over the past few years, it’s hard to imagine what a coalition with a much stronger New Zealand First (on 11.5% in Tuesday’s poll) would look like.

It’s also hard to imagine what could possibly be acting as such a sustained handbrake on the National Party’s popularity if not Luxon himself or the economy.

As one fund manager told me a few weeks ago in a blunt but sincere assessment of the National leader: the moment he met Luxon he just knew he didn’t like him.

This was someone who has held senior positions in the investment world - someone who I assumed would want to look favourably on a National leader with Luxon’s business pedigree.

It’s also worth nothing this fund manager believed the economy was in pretty good shape right now, all things considered.

Luxon has been at the helm during a tumultuous time in politics and should be getting some credit for the country’s - albeit slower than expected - economic recovery.

Some would argue if growth was going gangbusters, Luxon would be more popular (voters often blame their misfortunes on the government of the day) but this isn’t always the case.

One of Luxon’s mentors and predecessors Sir John Key enjoyed immense popularity in the late 2000s, even as the New Zealand economy struggled during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

Voters did appear less gloomy on the“right track, wrong track” indicator in Tuesday’s poll, though overall sentiment was still firmly negative.

This indicator has historically been a good predictor of an election result and it’s been pointing in the wrong direction in most polls this year.

Tuesday’s poll shows Luxon is still struggling to cut through to voters: mid-winter blues, the ongoing war in Iran and coalition jostling can explain only so much.

Even the historic New Zealand India free-trade agreement (FTA) many dismissed as too ambitious has not translated into greater public support for National.

The party will be scrambling behind the scenes to work out what levers it can pull that haven’t already been pulled to better appeal to the voting public.

Luxon was probably right to call a confidence vote on himself in late April as a way to see off any potential opponents and put the leadership matter to rest.

But one glance at the run of polls since that vote shows this move hasn’t generated more support for his party, if anything it’s held steady around 29% or dipped below that.

Luxon is on a well-deserved break (yes, politicians need holidays too) and his time away may well give him space to reflect on what, if anything, he can do between now and election night.

There are many possible answers to this question but the ones that don’t relate to Luxon himself are looking unconvincing once again.