Election Predictions 2026 – Old Zealand vs New Zealand
With the Election less than 16 weeks away, the Polls are all over the place and I think it will be down to the wire.
Here are my predictions as we get into the campaign.
Labour – 34%
I think Labour have held up and Chippy has threaded the needle between promising little and doing even less. I think Chippy will beat the living Christ out of Luxon in the debates and Labour’s ground game will ensure their team turns up. Expect the 23% of Māori who voted for National in the general seats to all walk back to Labour. The real challenge for Labour will be the post election negotiations, the reality is Labour can say no to everything that the Left actually wants but are they really going to a) go into a grand coalition wit National or b) go back to the electorate
National – 26%
Luxon is so feckless and weak. National risk creating an overhang because their Party vote is collapsing so quickly. The problem for National is that the Economy isn turning even more sour. Trump’s inane illegal war (which Luxon bewilderingly wanted to initially support) will keep damaging the economy and the impact of the most powerful El Niño in 150 years will highlight the Government’s climate denial in a blistering way. National are being mauled by the frighted redneck vote (NZF) and the angry redneck vote (ACT). The more voters see of Luxon in the debates, the less they will like him.
Greens – 15%
If the TPM Kakariki MMP voting strategy emerges and TPM urge their 4% Party vote support to vote Green instead and Candidate vote TPM in the Māori Electorates it will add up to 3% to the Greens. There has been an enormous demographic change in the Māori Electorates this election and those younger voters are far more likely to vote Green and TPM than Labour. I also think the vast chunk of youth who left NZ for Australia will come home for the Greens – expect a surprise in the Specials.
NZ First – 10%
The implosion of Trashy Nashy highlights their problems. NZF are just so toxic, from their MPs to their feral hate troll supporters that decent people back away in absolute disgust. NZF have peaked because while their toxic spite drives Social Media Hate algorithms and ferments polarisation, only 10% of the population are this unhinged from reality.
ACT – 10%
Paul Henry is the clown parrot who whitewashes ACTs Brown Shirts. His charm will take votes from National and ACT will hit double digits this election.
TOP – 5%
The elasticity of MMP allows for extremists to generate momentum in other directions. Qiulae appeals to second generation migrants, Gen Xers who don’t have property and cosmopolitan urbane Kiwis who want functioning cities. TOP are disrupters and want to make an impact. Labour + Greens + TPM can give them real policy wins, National + ACT + NZF can’t do that.
TPM – 5 Electorates
If the Kakariki MMP voting strategy is implemented, TPM will call on their voters to candidate vote TPM in the Māori electorates while Party voting Green. This recycles their wasted Party vote while generating an MMP overhang. Māori voters in the Māori Electorate are the most styregic voting block in NZ elections and with 70% of the Māori population under 40, their social media networks could push the Kakariki voting strategy in the same way we saw in the Tamaki Makaurau by-election.
Conclusion:
I think the majority will be Labour + Greens + TPM + TOP and if Greens + TOP + TPM form a united negotiating team against Labour, we will finally see the defeat of Labour’s incrementalism. Exp[ect the Wellington Labour Mandarins to SCREAM with terror that their incrementalism is gloriously bludgeoned to death.
If National + ACT + NZF are the majority it will be an even weaker National Party with far more dominant ACT and NZF so expect their second term to be far more dangerous and damaging than their first term
There is EVERYTHING to play for this election, the very should of NZ is up for grabs and despite the gerrymandering National have done to stop people voting, the Right could lose this election.
This Election is a fight between Old Zealand and New Zealand.
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Ruling by deceit
Voter suppression
The Post
Door-knocking on an Auckland street reveals cracks in new election enrolment rules
Anneke Smith
July 26, 2026
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361048152/door-knocking-auckland-street-reveals-cracks-new-election-enrolment-rules
Voters have exactly three months from today to enrol – or update their details – if they want to have a say in the 2026 election.
The coalition Government changed the electoral laws in December to stop people enrolling to vote in the two weeks leading up to election day – a moratorium that also applies to updating your address so you can vote for a local MP.
Around 230,000 voters either enrolled on the day or in the lead-up to the 2023 election……
Rightwing politician David Seymour called people who don’t enroll weeks or months before election day “drop kicks”.
There are many reasons that people are not on the electorol roll. One of them is moving house.
New Zealanders on the move
10 June 2025
The New Zealand population is highly mobile, with 2.2 million people moving address within New Zealand between 2018 and 2023….
Around 850,000 moves take place nationwide each year, a good proportion of these moves will be involuntary.
Moving house is an expensive and stressful experience, it is especially stressful if it is not voluntary, Having to re-enrol is last on the list of must dos and will liely be neglected to the last minute.
There is no precise data on the number of New Zealand tenants forced to move because a landlord sold the property. However, representative housing data shows that roughly a quarter of tenants who move do so because the landlord ended
the tenancy.
If you haven’t re-enrolled after moving house you won’t get your voting papers. You also won’t be allowed to vote on the day for your local candidate, You may be able to vote for the list in your previous electorate
Based on data from stats NZ, approximately 16,300 New Zealanders move house every week, this means, that going on the average of 32,600 New Zealanders moving house in the two weeks before the election, even if they actively want to re-enrol to vote they won’t be allowed to.
We have principles, if you don’t like those principles, we have other principles.
TOP are running a facebook political advertisement with an image grouping the three party leaders,
Qiulae Wong, Christopher Luxon, Chris Hipkins, together under a banner headline reading;
“Opportunity”
“We’ll hold the government to climate action”
underneath the image, the ad reads; –
“Whichever Chris is Prime Minister”
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10163203209647333&set=a.260169022332
Whichever Chris is Prime Minister of the government, the Opportunity Party may, or may not, hold the government to climate action. But that doesn’t read quite as well in an advertisement.
From Stuff.co.nz:
Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong says the party’s radical policies are discussion points rather than hard bottom lines.
nttps://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360998566/what-top-left-wing-party-disguise-pure-hype-or-something-
In New Zealand political ad campaigns do not have a general legal requirement to be completely truthful.
Unlike Australia where it is illegal to lie in a political ad, in New Zealand it is largely legal for political ads to contain misleading claims, exaggerations, even fake statistics, the only exception being, political ads must not contain a falsehood 48 hours before an election.
Going on current polling, if TOP get over the 5% threshold the biggest bloc on election night will be Labour, Green, TPM, TOP
I have included TOP in the Left bloc, because on Current polling the majority of New Zealand voters polled, including the MAJORITY of TOP supporters, want a Labour led coalition.
Going on current polling, Qiulae Wong and TOP have zero mandate from the Majority of New Zealanders and the Majority of TOP supporters to go into coalition with National, ACT and NZF.
Qiulae Wong has publicly vowed that if TOP get over the 5& threshold to become King Maker, TOP will start coalition negotiatons with the biggest party first.
Going on current polling, the biggest party on election night will be the Labour Party.
If at any time after election night, the TOP party leaders end their negotiations with Labour, and start negotiating with the National, ACT and NZF parties. The leaders of Labour, Greens and TPM need to call out their members and supporters onto the streets to visibly remind the TOP party leaders that they have no mandate to subert our democracy.
National Party style voter suppression, and TOP Party style manipulation of the majority popular will, can undermine the franchise.
Luckilly the franchise is not the only hard won right we enjoy in a democracy, the right to strike, the right to public assembly, the right to free speech, the right to petition our leaders, are bedrock rights in a democracy. Any attempt to gerrymander the results of the franchise, is the time to exercise our other democratic rights.
Defend our Democracy
If the Opportunity party return a National led coalition government against the democratic will of the majority of New Zealand voters without any mandate, even from their own members, then the Labour Party, the Green Party and Te Pati Maori must promise call on New Zealanders to join a nationwide peaceful protest and work stoppage for the defence of our democracy.
Screwing the Scrum.
The RNZ Reid Research poll revealed that the majority of all respondents polled, wanted a Labour led government.
… 43.4 percent of respondents wanted a Labour led coalition. 37.7 percent wanted a National led coaliton
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/713437/opportunity-voters-lean-labour-but-party-says-it-doesn-t-drive-our-decision-making
Taking these polls as an accurate relection of the will of the electorate – the democratic will of the majority of New Zealand voters is for a Labour led coalition government.
This result was particularly strong among TOP voters. TOP supporters polled in the RNZ Reid Research poll, revealed a solid majority, 41.1% of TOP voters wanted a Labour led government. A miserly 21.3% of TOP voters wanted a National led coalition.
If TOP do not make the 5% threshold all those TOP voteres in favour of a Labour led government will not have their vote counted. If TOP’s supporters, votes are not counted, on current polling results, this will give the National led coalition a slim one seat majority.
That’s not the worst of it.
Qiulae Wong the TOP Leader has said that the TOP leadership will not consider the will of ther members on which bloc to support. Remember that TOP supporters wishes are for a Labour led government by 2 to 1.
This can only mean one thing.
If TOP do make the 5% threshold their leaders will screw the scrum to the Right, against the will of the majority of New Zealanders, toward a National led coalition government.
A concerted effort must be made to expose the TOP leaders’ plan to shit on our democracy, and draw the Left leaning voters considering voting for TOP, back toward the Left, Labour, Greens, TPM, parties.
Unfortunately, it may already be too late.
Our only option then, will be to go onto the streets after this stolen election, and protest against the vicious policies this undemocratic National, ACT, NZF, TOP coalition will enact.
“TOP are disrupters and want to make an impact. Labour + Greens + TPM can give them real policy wins, National + ACT + NZF can’t do that.” Martyn Bradbury.
That statement is wrong on both counts.
#1 TOP are not disrupters in any real sense, the only disruptive impact that TOP are making is to the Left bloc democratic majority.
The Green Party and TPM have pledged to support a Labour led government.
TOP have not.
#2 Labour + Greens + TPM can not and will not give TOP real policy wins
The TOP flagship policy is a property tax to fund a UBI
Chris Hipkins has made it “Crystal clear” that there will be no changes to the tax system other than Labour’s proposed Capital Gains Tax.
“The Labour Party has been absolutely crystal clear that the policy change that we’re campaigning on in tax is a simple targeted capital gains tax that applies to residential property, excluding the family home and commercial property, and we wouldn’t go further than that,” Chris Hipkins, Labour Party leader
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360996573/no-wealth-taxes-and-inheritance-taxes-hipkins-draws-red-line-greens-proposals
To be fair, National will not agree to TOP’s flagship proposed property tax either.
But, and it’s a big ‘But’, TOP leader Qiulae Wong has said TOP’s policies are “designed” as “discussion points”.
If TOP cross the 5% threshold and get into parliament, after TOP and National have concluded their successful coalition negotiations, TOP’s ‘designed discussion points’ will be left on the table and negotiation conference room floor, for the cleaners to sweep up,
TOP are disrupters in the sense, that they have already disrupted the polls. The RNZ Reid Research poll revealed that a majority of respondents want a Labour led government. (this figure was even higher among TOP party supporters)
If the RNZ Reid Research poll is correct in estimating that the democratic will of the majority of New Zealanders is for a Labour led coalition government.
On current polling – In a close run election, if TOP don’t make the 5% vote threshold, the votes that TOP have bled away from the Left bloc, leave the Right bloc with just enough votes to govern.
The only way to avoid each of these two awful outcomes, is for the Left to wage all out war against TOP, with our demand that TOP state, (or not), that, –
-TOP will not, under any circumstances, undermine the democratic will of the majority of New Zealanders. (and their own supporters) by giving confidence and supply to a National led coalition.
At every public meeting, in every on-line forum, in every debate, TOP leaders must be challenged to reveal which bloc they will support.
A refusal to make this public committment will mark TOP as politically toxic to Left voters.
If there is ever another Bradbury Group, one-on-one-at-ten with Qiulae Wong, Martyn Bradbury needs to ask Qiulae Wong, directly;
Will you, Qiulae Wong, give a commitment right here, that TOP will not, under any circumstances, undermine the democratic will of the majority of New Zealanders and your own supporters by giving confidence and supply to a National led coalition?
If Qiulae Wong refuses to answer, she should be told to “Fuck Off!” in those exact words.
lol, in your dreams. NZ hasn’t had a one term government since 1975 and it’s safe to assume that this lot won’t be either. Hipkins is tarred with Jacinda’s record of failure and Labour is offering nothing in the way of winning policy. The left is inextricably linked to the loathsome woke virus and the vast majority of New Zealanders distrust the Greens and TPM without whom Labour cannot form a government. I would say your chances of winning the 2026 election are about zero.
Hey, what’s the view like from Luxies office these days? Hard to find the ferries?