The National Party has plummeted to 30% in the first public poll since the Covid-19 crisis took hold, almost halving their support in just three months.
The Newshub Reid Research poll has National at 30.6 – while Labour has rocketed up to 56.5 per cent under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's leadership through the Covid-19 crisis.
The Green Party is on 5.5 per cent, but NZ First has dropped to 2.7 per cent - well below the threshold to return to Parliament.
Those results would give Labour 72 seats in Parliament, National 39, and Act 2. The Greens would get seven seats.
It is a disastrous result for National Party leader Simon Bridges and the party, just four months ahead of September's general election, and will cause ructions within the caucus, especially among List MPs whose places are in danger.
Bridges has struggled to get traction in the preferred Prime Minister stakes since taking over in early 2018, and faced a public backlash in the earlier days of the Covid-19 lockdowns after criticising elements of the Government's response.
Most of the Reid Research poll was conducted prior to last week's Budget, and takes into account public sentiment in the final days of the level three lockdown.
The poll result is a significant change in fortunes for the National Party, which was sitting at 43.3 per cent in the most recent Reid Research poll in February this year – slightly ahead of Labour.
National was also sitting pretty in a February One News Colmar Brunton poll, on 46 per cent – a poll on which it could have taken the Government benches with Act.
However, Bridges had struggled to get airtime throughout the crisis, while Ardern's leadership was further cemented and lauded both domestically and internationally.
The National Party has rebounded from bad polls in the past - including after the dramatic accusations and expulson of MP Jami Lee Ross, and after the Christchurch mosque attacks when Ardern's popularity soared over her handling of that disaster.
However, those results were not as resounding as these - nor as close to an election.
Related Stories
Comments
International opinions of NZ matter not, since they are the opinions of the 'leaders' who are invariably leftist, which is why Europe in particular is in such a mess. That NZers could be gulled by Ardern, I find disappointing.