Labour coalition ahead in latest poll results, Opportunity close to 5%

Author: Julia Gabel,
Publish Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2026, 6:26pm

Labour Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon and some of their senior ministers. Graphic / Paul Slater

The coalition would be out of power if an election were held today, fresh poll results from 1News-Verian show.

Although it has taken a sizeable drop, Labour remains the highest polling party at 32% (down 5 percentage points). This compares to National on 29%, down one point.

And there was a surprise boost in the polling for a minor party, the Opportunity Party, jumping up 1.3 points to 4.6% - now sitting just below the 5% threshold to enter Parliament.

For the remaining smaller parties, the Green Party was on 13% (up two points), New Zealand First was on 11% (up one point), Act was on 6% (down 1 point) and Te Pāti Māori remained steady on 2%.

These latest results from 1News-Verian would put the left bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori in power with 64 seats, based on the presumption Te Pāti Māori wins six electorates. The right bloc of National, NZ First and ACT would have 60.

On the preferred prime minister rankings, National’s Christopher Luxon takes top spot (18%, up two points). Labour’s Chris Hipkins fell three points to 16%.

The next preferred prime minister was New Zealand First leader Winston Peters on 10%.

It is the first 1News Verian poll since the Budget. The last such poll was published in the days before Luxon called a dramatic confidence vote in himself, which he survived.

The TVNZ poll comes in the context of several polls showing a tight election race.

The most recent NZ Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls, which did not include this 1 News-Verian Poll, put Labour at 32.7%, while support parties the Greens and Te Pāti Māori were polling 9.9% and 2.2% respectively.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo / Mark Mitchell

On the other side of the aisle, it calculated National was polling 29.%, while support parties NZ First and Act were polling 13.7% and 7.4% respectively, giving the coalition 50.5%.

Those figures would give the coalition 63 seats and Labour 57. Overall the poll-of-polls model calculated the coalition had a 74.3% chance of being re-elected.

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.