Last night’s Newshub Reid Research poll found Labour had dipped 3.6 percentage points to 32.3 percent, while National had bumped up 1.3 points to 36.6 percent.
Combined with Act’s 12.1 percent, the two right-leaning parties would get 63 seats and enough to form a majority in the 120-seat Parliament.
The Greens were up 1.5 points to 9.6 percent. Te Pāti Māori was down 0.8 points to 2.7 percent.
On those numbers, Labour would get 42 seats, the Green Party 12 seats and Te Pāti Māori three seats. Together this would put the left bloc on 57 seats.
New Zealand First, whose leader Winston Peters has ruled out working with Labour, was up 1.1 points to 4.1 percent.
Speaking to media today at the site of a new public housing development in Auckland, Hipkins said he saw no clear winner in recent polls.
Instead, he said the country had been through a bit of a storm in recent times which was contributing to variability in the numbers.
He said Labour would be clear on its bottom lines closer to the election, and what the party would not be willing to shift on.
Despite the drop in party polling, Hipkins himself received a 0.6-point boost to 24 percent as preferred prime minister in last night’s poll.
In contrast, National Party leader Christopher Luxon was down 0.5 points to 15.9 percent.
When asked why the public appeared to prefer him to Luxon, Hipkins today said “I like to think I’m a likeable guy”.
The poll was taken between July 26 and 31, starting two days after former justice minister Kiri Allan crashed her car and resigned after being charged by police.
Newshub also asked respondents about how Hipkins had handled Allan’s resignation, with 53.5 percent saying he handled it well and 19.5 percent saying poorly, and 27.2 percent saying they did not know.
The last Newshub Reid Research poll in mid-May had a Labour/Greens/Te Pāti Māori coalition reaching 61 seats - enough to form a government.
National and Act would only muster 59 seats, according to that poll. Labour was at 35.9 percent, down 2.1 percentage points.
National was just behind on 35.3 percent, down 1.3 points.
Act was largely unchanged on 10.8 percent and the Greens were unchanged at 8.1 percent.
