The New Zealand General Election Saturday 7 November 2026: why it is a close call.

To be honest I haven't been following the political progress as much as my esteemed co-blogger Peter. So I asked Meta AI for an update. Nothing wrong with that!

New Zealand goes to the polls on 7 November in what is shaping up as one of the most unpredictable MMP elections in years. The 54th Parliament was elected on 14 October 2023, and this vote will determine the 55th Parliament. 

If you are expecting a simple two-horse race, the polls are not giving you one.

Recent polling averages have National leading Labour by just over one point, while other recent snapshots have had both major parties tied at 28% each. In short, the two majors are both sitting on historically low shares, and neither bloc has a built-in majority.

Reuters noted this week that overseas voting opens from 21 October and that "no party, or likely coalition grouping, with a clear majority" is showing in recent opinion polls.

Under MMP a party needs 5% of the party vote or one electorate to get its proportional share of seats. As one analysis put it, "National may win the most votes – but that does not guarantee Christopher Luxon will remain prime minister".

That is because of what happens below the top two:

3. The four parties who will decide it

Greens: polling at a record high 16% in one October poll, down slightly to 15% in another. Their highest ever recorded level.

ACT:  steady around 10-11%.

New Zealand First: 9-10% and rising to 12% in some fieldwork, which in one projection handed the incumbent National-NZ First-ACT grouping 65 seats in a 122-seat Parliament.

The Opportunity Party (TOP): The wildcard. Polling at 6% to 8%, above the threshold. One Verian poll labelled it directly: "Hung parliament (Opportunity holds the balance of power)".

That is why headlines right now are using the same word: kingmaker. Two polls released on the same days in October gave opposite winners, entirely depending on where NZ First and Opportunity landed.

Scenario A - Continuity:National + ACT + NZ First get back over 61. This needs NZ First to hold around 10-12% and TOP to fall just under. The pathway exists - BusinessDesk's PollTracker simulations put this bloc in majority in 57.6% of 10,000 simulations at one point.

Scenario B - Centre-left switch: Labour + Greens + Opportunity + Te Pāti Māori. This becomes viable if Greens stay at 15-16% and Opportunity stays above 5%. A Post/Freshwater poll in late October described it as "neck-and-neck" with the two majors just over a percentage point apart.

Scenario C - Negotiation marathon: Neither bloc gets 61, and TOP or NZ First negotiates with both sides. That is what recent 1News-Verian and RNZ-Reid Research polls point to, with Labour at 30.8%, National 25.9%, Greens 14.8%, NZ First 10.6%, ACT 9%, Opportunity 5.5% in one RNZ-Reid snapshot.

On 7 November, voting places open from 9am to 7pm and preliminary results roll in from 7pm. We will know who won the most votes that night. We may not know who will govern for a few weeks after.

At the end of the day, no matter who writes the Bills, we are lucky to live in such a wonderful country.