Even with Opportunity\u2019s support, the left bloc can only reach a majority if Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori wins enough electorates to create an overhang in Parliament<\/a>. <\/p>\n Hipkins has also dropped three points to 17% in the preferred prime minister rankings.<\/p>\n Bombshell 1News Verian poll delivers major election shake-up – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n Opportunity remains kingmaker 18 days out from election day. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n The Labour leader brushed off the result when asked by 1News, saying “one poll is not an election result” and that different polls were all concluding “very different things”.<\/p>\n “We’ve got real momentum. We’re getting great feedback on the ground,” he said.<\/p>\n “Another poll out this morning had Labour ahead of National. I think it underscores the fact that it’s going to be a very close election. Every vote’s going to matter.”<\/p>\n Luxon, out campaigning today as New Zealand\u2019s free trade agreement with India came into force, said National\u2019s \u201cplan is working\u201d.<\/p>\n (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n “We know that what we’ve been doing is the right stuff. We just want more time, and we need another three years to get the job done,” he said.<\/p>\n The share of voters who did not know who they would vote for, or refused to say, fell from 12% to 10% in tonight’s poll.<\/p>\n Opportunity remains on track to enter Parliament for the first time with 7% support, down one point from last week.<\/p>\n Leader Qiulae Wong said she was happy her party\u2019s support was \u201cfairly steady\u201d, and that it was \u201clooking positive for us to get well over the 5% mark”. <\/p>\n That\u2019s the threshold for a party to get into Parliament.<\/p>\n National\u2019s gain in the latest poll has come as its current coalition partners ACT climbed one point to 11% while NZ First fell two points to 8%.<\/p>\n NZ First leader Winston Peters lashed out at the result, saying the poll was “crap”. He said his party would \u201cdo something about the TV1 polls\u201d after the election.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure the people that concoct them are no longer wasting people\u2019s time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Leader Chris Hipkins said he remained \u201cvery confident\u201d in the party\u2019s campaign. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n Asked whether that was a threat, Peters said: \u201cIt\u2019s not a threat. I\u2019m somebody with a political science degree\u2026 and I think it\u2019s a tragedy that you\u2019re misinforming people.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile Labour\u2019s likely allies, the Greens, remain strong, up one point to 16%, while Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori remain under the 1% mark and reliant on winning a M\u0101ori electorate seat.<\/p>\n Polling took place as the Greens and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori faced backlash from both the coalition and Labour after their candidates met with Mongrel Mob members. Hipkins ruled out either party holding key law and order portfolios in a government he led. <\/p>\n How the seat maths works out<\/p>\n On today\u2019s numbers, National would win 38 seats, Labour 32, the Greens 19, ACT 13, NZ First nine and Opportunity eight.<\/p>\n The rest of the picture depends on some assumptions, as Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori\u2019s party vote is too low to earn it more than one seat, but any electorates it does win would ultimately add seats to Parliament. 1News polling partner Verian models two scenarios for this<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n In the first, Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori holds four electorates, and Te Tai Tokerau Party holds one, the seats their MPs hold now from the 2023 election. That would add four extra seats to Parliament, taking it to 124 and lifting the number needed to govern to 63.<\/p>\n National, ACT and NZ First would have 60 seats, three short of a majority.<\/p>\n Labour, the Greens, Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori and Te Tai Tokerau would have 56, but Opportunity\u2019s eight would take them to 64 and a governing majority.<\/p>\n In the second scenario, if Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori holds just one electorate, Parliament would have 120 seats, and 61 would be needed to have a majority. <\/p>\n The current coalition parties would again have 60, one short. <\/p>\n Labour, the Greens and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori would have 52, and even with Opportunity they would be deadlocked with the right on 60 seats each.<\/p>\n With Opportunity, the right could govern in either of these two scenarios, but the left needs results in the electorates to go its way.<\/p>\n Luxon has, however, repeatedly ruled out working with the Opportunity Party. Wong believes he will change his mind if her MPs are needed to form a coalition.<\/p>\n Asked today whether he would pick up the phone if Wong called him after the November 7 election, he again refused to budge.<\/p>\n Wong said Luxon would be her first call if the result in tonight’s poll was repeated on election night, describing his stance as \u201cpretty baffling\u201d.<\/p>\n (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n \u201cWe will reach out if he doesn\u2019t call us and give him one last chance to have that conversation, and if he doesn\u2019t want to, if he really wants to be in opposition, then we will go and speak to Labour next,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Voters less pessimistic on the economy<\/p>\n Fewer voters are pessimistic about the economy in today\u2019s poll than at any point this year, with just 21% expecting it to get worse over the next 12 months, down four points.<\/p>\n The share expecting it to improve rose four points to 43%.<\/p>\n That marks a sharp turnaround since April, when 52% expected the economy to worsen and 26% expected it to improve. That poll was taken weeks after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz triggered the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n Pessimism has fallen in every poll since then.<\/p>\n In the preferred prime minister rankings, Luxon held steady on 20%. Hipkins fell three points to 17%, after climbing from 14% to 20% across the previous two polls.<\/p>\n NZ First’s Peters rose one point to 8%, Green Party co-leader Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick rose one point to 7%, and ACT leader David Seymour rose one point to 5%.<\/p>\n See the full poll results and methodology<\/a><\/p>\n Between October 15 and October 19 2026, 1003 eligible voters were polled by mobile phone (500) and online using online panels (503). The maximum sampling error is approximately \u00b13.1%-points at the 95% confidence level. Party support percentages have been rounded up or down to whole numbers, except those less than 4.5%, which are reported to one decimal place. The data has been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and education level. The sample for mobile phones is selected by random dialling using probability sampling, and the online sample is collected using an online panel. Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on party support. The results are a snapshot in time of party support, and not a prediction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Luxon\u2019s National Party has surged four points to open a five-point lead over Labour in the latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28921,44152,11508,69543,8028,11507,111,137,43,139,69,271022,135,8027,111736,270122],"class_list":["post-636185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-act-party","tag-chris-hipkins","tag-christopher-luxon","tag-green-party","tag-labour-party","tag-national-party","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-first","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opportunity-party","tag-politics","tag-te-pati-maori","tag-verian-poll","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636185","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=636185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1news-verian-poll-20-october-2026-party-vote-I5G3TXNMT5HDZCSTEMM63UYLXY.png\")
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