TVNZ Poll bombshell: Winners, Losers and Predictions

The latest TVNZ poll results have detonated the political landscape, with massive swings that suggest something deeper than voter mood — a full-blown rejection. If this holds, the TVNZ poll bombshell could signal the beginning of the end for this Government.

Boom.

After months and months and months of economic vandalism, Kiwi voters are now so run down and hurt, they are walking away from the Right.

Let’s be clear, these swings are so wild for a mainstream poll like TVNZ, Labour up 5% and National down 4%?!? That is a bombshell of a result and it’s either a terrible rogue poll or there has been an earthquake politically over the last couple of months.

I think National can thank Trump.

Luxon hasn’t helped by actually getting worse than he started. His inability to get beyond rich prick talking points and show anything resembling human empathy is almost supernatural at this stage. Apparently, he is so arrogant that he simply doesn’t even bother checking negative responses about him in National’s polling data.

His level of misplaced self belief is evangelical in its disconnect from reality.

He sees himself as a great leader, we all see him as a dickhead.

Who’s up and who’s bleeding

There are of course political winners and losers.

Winners:

Labour’s Incrementalism: Promising little and doing less has been the magic sauce so far. Wellington’s Mandarins of Mediocrity have won and all Labour have to argue is, ‘we will be slightly less cruel than National’ and they win.

Chippy: As I argued at the time, so many men who have witnessed the weaponisation of allegation culture online and who watched the media whip Chippy until he choked up over his kids marched back to Labour.

TOP: They jump 2 points to 3%. If you are a blue green cosmopolitan National voter who is becoming increasingly horrified that a vote for National means Winston becomes prime minister for 12 months, you will walk over to TOP. If TOP break 5%, Winston is no longer the Kingmaker.

Te Pati Māori: If TPM hold 4 electorates (which I think they will) and only score 2% Party vote (which after the infighting is completely possible) they will generate an MMP overhang making it more difficult for the Right to get to 51%.

Losers:

NZF: Winston will be very happy with this result. The problem for NZ First now is that their activists are so toxic online that they are impossible to win people over and in fact start driving voters away. If TOP get over 5% it will be because NZ First book burners drive the surge.

ACT: The problem for David Seymour is that the social media hate algorithms have polarised the right to the point that their rednecks have gone crimson. ACT offer a libertarian fig-leaf pretension to their racism and free market malice  but in such polarised social media environments, punters want their racism full bodied with extra crunch, NZ First offers them that Lynch mob without all the pretending to be high minded that ACT offer.

National: They know Luxon is sinking them, but none of them have the capacity to win over the various warring factions. Now that Judith has stepped down, her faction is splintering. Erica Stanford has too many skeletons, Mark Mitchell is too dumb and Simeon is, well, Simeon. There are 3 factions, Anyone-but-Luxon, Anyone-but-Bishop and the Simeon Brown faction, which just has Simeon in it. Bless. The only real option for National  is for Nicola Willis to assume Prime Ministership and Finance just like Rob Muldoon did.

Luxon: He’s actually getting worse. He will be destroyed in the Debates.

What happens next if this holds

Predictions:

Auckland, Auckland, Auckland! Look, it is ball crushingly difficult right now to live in Auckland. Falling house prices, a higher unemployment rate than the entire country, the cost, the cost, the cost of everything plus public transport far increases – Auckland is haemorrhaging economically and National’s inability to invest because they are ideologically opposed to the State spending money means Aucklanders feel left behind. Auckland is now in a doom loop with the poor unable to afford the petrol to drive to the food banks to pick up kai – that will have dreadful consequences. No Party wins New Zealand, if you lose Auckland.

Fuel Crisis: The Government are simply hoping Trump becomes rational before a price destruction of petrol occurs, and I just don’t think that’s rational! Trump has blundered into the worst geopolitical miscalculation since Vietnam and the only way he gets out of it is to give Iran everything they want or nuke the entire coastline. That’s how badly he’s fucked up. Hoping that he can negotiate himself out of this insanity is insanity. Treasury are predicting worst case scenario will see 7.5% inflation

Climate Events: They are getting worse and more extreme and the Government’s refusal to do anything meaningful because their redneck supporters are convinced it’s all a hoax will motivate people impacted by this in ways that won’t benefit the Government.

Labour are the answer, but not the solution: Labour’s incrementalism has served them well but is an enormous disservice to the people. The reality is that the progressive policy needed to make a material difference to the vast majority of Kiwis won’t come from Labour, it will come from Greens, Te Pāti Māori and hopefully TOP.

Limits of hyper polarised culture war hate in an MMP system: The failure for NZ First to continue growing and the drop in ACT support highlight the limits of the hyper polarised culture war hate that their social media hate algorithms can generate. The problem for NZ First and ACT is that their supporters are feral and the more you see of their deplorable hate, the more toxic they become. NZ First and ACT activists become their worst adverts, I mean who could do anything but vomit at this NZ First activist…

…the anti-Trans, anti-vaxxers and the Māori haters become so radioactive that decent human beings turn in disgust and walk away.

So.

National have caused enormous economic vandalism over the last three years with their free market austerity budgets and are led by a dickhead that no one likes while NZ First’s toxic activists start becoming the best advert against them. No one cares about ACT anymore.

Labour are gaining by promising nothing as the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and TOP wait to force them into making concessions.

There is a very good chance that this will be a one term Government.