![\"1News](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1news-verian-poll-preferred-pm-august-2026-RB2II4DBDFD4JLD3JD2NJZN4DI.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe latest 1News Verian poll, released this morning, confirms Christopher Luxon\u2019s unpopularity as prime minister. <\/p>\n
The National Party leader\u2019s preferred prime minister rating has dropped a further percentage point since June to just 17%. <\/p>\n
Luxon does, however, remain ahead of Labour\u2019s Chris Hipkins, who is on 15%, also down one, in today’s poll results.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1News Verian poll, August 2026. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Potential National leader Erica Stanford is on 2%, with Chris Bishop on 1%.<\/p>\n
NZ First leader Winston Peters is down three to 7% compared to the last poll in June. That comes after controversial exchanges with China-born MP Lawrence Xu-Na, which led Luxon to say Peters\u2019 comments were racist.<\/p>\n
The Greens\u2019 Chloe Swarbrick is steady on 6%, while ACT\u2019s David Seymour is up one on 5%.<\/p>\n
The poll was conducted from August 8-11 with a sample size of 847 and 1News will have full results, including the standing of the parties, later in the day.<\/p>\n
Historically low<\/p>\n
An analysis of 1News Verian poll data since the last election shows Luxon’s preferred prime minister ratings have been historically low throughout his time in office.<\/p>\n
Politicians in the top job who come to power through an election usually enjoy public support early in their time in office – think Helen Clark, John Key and Jacinda Ardern.<\/p>\n
For example, Key rose in support from 40% to 51% as preferred prime minister in the February following the 2008 election.<\/p>\n
And, following the swearing-in of Ardern’s 2017 coalition government, she also posted a 10-point lift in her preferred prime minister numbers by the following February.<\/p>\n
Ratings then tend to drop in a second or third term.<\/p>\n
But Luxon has never been beyond 28% in terms of the percentage of voters saying they prefer him to be prime minister, and sometimes he has been in the teens.<\/p>\n
In the last Verian poll in June, he rated at just 18%, though this was slightly higher than his Labour rival Chris Hipkins, who was at 16%.<\/p>\n
The animated graphic above shows how voters surveyed by Verian have rated Luxon and the other potential prime ministers in each poll since the 2023 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest 1News Verian poll, released this morning, confirms Christopher Luxon\u2019s unpopularity as prime minister. The National Party…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11508,42,11507,43,135,40,38,41,39,270122],"class_list":["post-566201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christopher-luxon","tag-headlines","tag-national-party","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566201","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=566201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}