Labour maintaining its hold on the top spot<\/a> at 34%, despite a drop in support of 1.6 points since March.<\/p>\nNational fell 2.1 points to 28.7%, its fourth consecutive decline in the Reid Research series and its weakest result since Luxon became leader in November 2021.<\/p>\n
In contrast, New Zealand First rose for a third consecutive poll, climbing 0.9 points to 11.5%, its best showing with Reid Research since July 2017.<\/p>\n
The Green Party edged up 0.2 points to 10.3%, while Act gained 0.8 points to 7.8%.<\/p>\n
But the biggest mover was the refreshed Opportunity Party, currently sitting outside Parliament.<\/p>\n
Support for the party more than doubled, jumping 2.7 points to 4.7%, leaving it just 0.3 points short of the 5% threshold needed to enter Parliament without winning an electorate.<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori was on 2.3%, down 0.9 points.<\/p>\n
Undecided or non-voters made up 3.8% of respondents, a significant drop from 7.1% in March.<\/p>\n
The poll was conducted between July 2 and 9, following a string of policy announcements from all parties and the annual conferences of National, Labour and Act.<\/p>\n
If the poll results were replicated at the election, National would return 36 MPs, alongside 15 for New Zealand First and 10 for Act, giving the coalition 61 seats in a 120-seat Parliament.<\/p>\n
On the left, Labour would pick up 43 seats, the Greens 13 and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori three. Together, that makes 59 MPs.<\/p>\n
Those projections are based on party vote and assume no overhang seats. They also assume the return of all parties currently in Parliament.<\/p>\n
National could extend the coalition\u2019s lead and the size of Parliament if it won more than 36 electorates, thereby creating an overhang. The party currently holds 43 electorates.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori could close the gap if it picked up more than three electorates. The party won six of the seven M\u0101ori electorates at the last election.<\/p>\n
If Opportunity crossed the 5% threshold, the composition of Parliament would change significantly, taking seats from the parties already represented.<\/p>\n
In contrast to their parties\u2019 falling popularity, both National\u2019s Luxon and Labour\u2019s Chris Hipkins improved their personal standings.<\/p>\n
Hipkins remained the most preferred prime minister, climbing 3.2 points to 23.9%. Luxon rose 2.7 points to 20%.<\/p>\n
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was third on 13.2%, up 0.1 points.<\/p>\n
Fifteen % of voters either declined to nominate a prime ministerial candidate or said they did not know.<\/p>\n
Voters also appeared less gloomy than they were in March, although sentiment remained firmly negative overall.<\/p>\n
The results showed 34.7% (up 2.4 points) of respondents thought the country was heading in the right direction, compared to 46.5% (down 3.5 points) who thought the opposite.<\/p>\n
That produced a net score of -11.8, an improvement of 5.9 points from the last poll in March.<\/p>\n
About 17.5% of voters were undecided, while another 1.2% said they did not know.<\/p>\n
National supporters were the most optimistic with a net score of +68.7, followed by Act supporters on +37.7.<\/p>\n
New Zealand First voters were considerably more pessimistic, recording a net score of -36.1.<\/p>\n
This poll of 1000 people was conducted by Reid Research, using quota sampling and weighting to ensure a representative cross-section by age, gender and geography. The poll was conducted through online interviews between July 2-9, 2026 and has a maximum margin of error of +\/- 3.1% at a 95% confidence level.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Likewise, Parliament\u2019s make-up would shift markedly if Opportunity tipped over the 5% threshold. The poll \u2013 published on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6650,4508,17576,16427,26478,3556,11688,117,111,43,139,69,6452,24637,13027,45,8238],"class_list":["post-524548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-craig","tag-hits","tag-low","tag-luxon","tag-mcculloch","tag-national","tag-nears","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opportunity","tag-parliament","tag-poll","tag-rnz","tag-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524548","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=524548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}