National's electoral dominance grows
National's forecast party vote hits record high in latest iPredict weekly snapshot.
National's forecast party vote hits record high in latest iPredict weekly snapshot.
National’s forecast party vote has hit a record high of 49.0% in the latest iPredict weekly snapshot.
Up from 46.5% in last week’s snapshot, this total would be enough for National to comfortably govern alone, according to iPredict’s forecasts.
Based on other forecast electorate and party vote results, National would have 62 MPs in a 121-seat Parliament.
Labour is forecast to win 30.2% of the party vote (down from 31.4% last week), giving it 38 MPs.
The Greens appear to have picked up some of Labour’s forecast support and are predicted to get 8.0% (up from 7.9% last week), giving the party 10 MPs.
Act (4.1%, down from 4.4%) is forecast to get five seats, the Maori Party is forecast to get three (including Dr Pita Sharples retaining Tamaki-Makaurau), while UnitedFuture and the Mana Party are predicted to get two each.
New Zealand First’s chance of reaching the crucial 5% threshold appears to be fading, the Winston Peters-led party’s expected party vote at the election dropping to 4.0%, down from 4.5% last week.
Meanwhile, in economics, forecasts for inflation, the current account deficit, unemployment, the OCR and future Fonterra payouts have all fallen.