{"id":315807,"date":"2026-03-06T10:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/315807\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:02:10","slug":"luxon-rejects-leadership-speculation-as-national-slumps-in-latest-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/315807\/","title":{"rendered":"Luxon rejects leadership speculation as National slumps in latest poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is rejecting widespread talk about his leadership future as pressure mounts on the National Party following a damaging new poll.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Newstalk ZB, Luxon said all of his ministers back him and none were telling him to consider his future. A rumour circulating widely was that Luxon would consider his options over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only thing I\u2019m considering is the future of our kids and our grandkids and that\u2019s why I came to politics,\u201d he told ZB, saying he thought the media had got \u201ccarried away\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It follows his party\u2019s disastrous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.interest.co.nz\/public-policy\/137515\/new-taxpayers-union-curia-poll-puts-national-just-284-labour-344-and-enough\" rel=\" noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">28.4% poll result released on Friday<\/a> in the latest Taxpayers&#8217; Union-Curia Poll taken earlier this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Friday, political commentator Ben Thomas, who previously worked for the National Party, described the result as &#8211; \u201cnot great\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat mark under 30, it&#8217;s obviously a psychological inflection point, but more importantly it changes the complexion of National&#8217;s outlook for the election.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So on 30%, 32% say, as they&#8217;ve [been] on a number of polls &#8211; historically a very low result for National but at the same time, the continuation of a National-led coalition government. [But] when National gets down to 28% without a corresponding increase in its coalition partners, then you&#8217;re looking at a historically low result and being turfed out of Parliament after one term,&#8221; Thomas said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That obviously puts a very, very different lens on it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One Plus One director of government relations Esther Robinson, who previously worked for the Labour Party, said it was a poll that National couldn\u2019t afford to ignore.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the backbenchers head back to their electorates this weekend, many will know that based on these numbers their jobs are at stake on Saturday, 7 November,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith support in the high-20s, a turnaround strategy is still possible for National, but intervention is needed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile smaller parties will play a decisive role in determining who forms the next government, the group of undecided voters remains significant this far out from an election. It suggests neither of the major parties has yet done enough to capture the attention of the voters who will ultimately decide the outcome,&#8221; said Robinson.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas said while the tangible effect of National heading into the election on a poll number \u201cthat is so much lower than they got in 2023 is obviously first of all, MPs in marginal seats are very much at risk\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd MPs on the list, which, because of the low number of MPs they got on the list in the last election, are very generally senior ministers, Nicola Willis, Paul Goldsmith, the speaker [Gerry Brownlee] &#8230; they&#8217;re the members of caucus who are most likely to be spooked by low polling numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is rejecting widespread talk about his leadership future as pressure mounts on the National&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-315807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}