National has fallen to 37 per cent but still leads Labor on 33 per cent in the latest 1 News / Kantar political poll.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
The poll placed the Green Party, which has faced leadership turmoil, with 9% of the vote, ACT with 11%, NZ First with 3% and Te Pāti Māori with 2%.
The numbers, if they hold, would mean National and ACT together would have enough seats to form the next government.
It compares with previous results at the end of May: National is steady at 39 per cent, Labor at 35 per cent, Greens at 10 per cent, ACT at 7 per cent and Te Pāti Māori keeping the balance of power at 2 percent.
At the time, Ardern had been on 33 per cent and Luxon on 25 per cent in “most preferred prime minister” shares.
In this poll, both Ardern and Luxon fell in the PM favorite rankings, with Ardern scoring 30 percent and Luxon 22 percent.
ACT leader David Seymour was up 2 points on 5 per cent, NZ First leader Winston Peters was up 1 on 2 per cent and Greens MP Chlöe Swarbrick was down one point on 1 for one hundred.
National has just emerged from its first party conference with Luxon as leader, where she announced a new welfare policy that has been heavily criticized by Ardern, Labor and the Greens and some support services groups.
None of this would have been public when the polls were taken, but ongoing struggles with rising inflation, labor shortages, a health sector in crisis and heightened international tensions will have weighed on the concerns of respondents
Between July 30 and August 3, 2022, 1,023 eligible voters were polled by mobile phone (504) and online, using online panels (519).
The maximum sampling error was approximately plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
