Latest poll suggests election too close to call

Latest poll suggests election too close to call
The latest 3 News political poll shows the Maori Party will choose the next Government, and the Greens enjoying their best result in more than five years. The poll is not good news for National: it effectively means the National and Labour blocks are neck and neck, despite National being by far the more popular major party. National is steady on 45.1 percent, and Labour actually drops to 37.4 percent. But the Greens are on 8.8 percent, and can be added to Labour's total. New Zealand First has crept up to 3.5 percent, so Winston Peters cannot be ruled out making a return to Parliament. National leader John Key will be sweating - remember he has ruled working with Peters out. The Maori Party is on 2.3 percent, but they are expected to win six, or perhaps even all seven Maori seats. ACT is on 1.7 percent, with just two MPs. Peter Dunne's United Future is pretty unpopular, polling at 0.2 percent, as were the Progressives, on 0.1. On this poll, Parliament would overhang to 123 seats. National would have 57 seats, ACT two, and United Future one – a total of 60 seats, and not enough to govern. In opposition Labour has 47 seats, the Greens 11 and the Progressives one – a total of 59, also not enough to govern.

The Polls this year have been notorious and with the inanely high expectations of some National Party supporters who are personally hateful at Helen, some Poll misreads could be blamed for fuelling some of that inanely high expectations. The Herald Poll, the Fairfax Poll and the TV One Poll have all been very high for National, historically those Polls have also been more wrong than the other Polls - but the most trusted Poll – the Roy Morgan has shown something very different and that difference has been mirrored by last nights TV3 Poll. The picture they show is the one I have been predicting will be where we find ourselves on the day after the election….

National will win the most seats on the night between 40%-45%

Labour won’t do as poorly as has been predicted, Maori voters keen to give a clear signal that they don’t want Sharples and co to cut a deal with National will pour their party vote into Labour and Lockwoods words will swing back the Pacific Island vote, Labour also have a much better party machine on the day to get their voters to the booths.

A resurgent Greens who have done the best media campaign this election will hit 7%-8%, normally they need to rely on a youth vote that gets too stoned to vote on the day, but this time around the youth vote is as likely to vote National meaning the Greens have picked up a lot broader support than youth and that broader support is more likely to vote on the day.

Maori Party – will win all 7 Maori seats, might get a boost in the Party vote from Nat supporters but not from Labour supporting Maori, but the Party vote won’t be high enough to give them an 8th MP.

NZ First – damn me but I think he might get 5.01%

Progressives & United – Jim and Peter will continue their own fiefdoms with both returned but with no friends to play with, which will be a loss for Matt Robson.

ACT – Rodney will take Epsom, but he might not get as many friends as he was hoping for.

The Government will either be Labour-Greens-Maori or National-Maori. My hope is Labour-Greens-Maori but the Greens and the Maori Party just haven’t been talking to eachother to force the progressive legislative platform through Labour and the only parties who have been meeting to thrash things out are the Nats and the Maori Party.

Also note the fury, and I mean FURY a lot of National Party supporters are going to feel by this whole process if they don’t win, we could be more polarized than ever before especially if the Maori Party and Greens pull Labour further to the left. I don’t see the country being in a much better place for this pretty bruising election.