Take your pick: National down, up in final polls
Fairfax has a big slump, National has a big jump.
The final Fairfax-Ipsos poll before voting Saturday, taken Sept 13 - 17, has National down 5.1 points to 47.7% and Labour up 3.7 points to 26.15% — a result that would would give National 61 seats in a 124 seat Parliament (with overhang), or a 63-seat majority if ACT and UnitedFuture hold their single seat each and ally.
"These results are remarkably similar to the 2011 election where National received 47.3 per cent of the vote and Labour 27.5 per cent," pollster Matt Benson says (Fairfax's final poll of 2011 put National on 54.0% and Labour on 26%).
The final Herald-Digipoll survey, also released today, finds the opposite trend.
Digipoll says with 60% of the poll complete by Kim Dotcom's "Moment of Truth" event Monday night, National was polling at 47.8%, down on last week. From Tuesday, National jumped to 49.1%. Overall, the party fell less than half a percent.
Similarly, John Key was polling at 63.4% on Monday. From Tuesday, his preferred PM rating jumped to 66%.
The latest OneNews-Colmar Brunton poll, released last night, shows National down 1 point to 45%, meaning the party would need ACT and UnitedFuture to hold their single seats, and the Maori Party to hold at least two of its three seats.
All three polls have NZ First comfortably over the 5% threshold, the Conservatives falling short, and Internet Mana slumping back to margin-of-error support — making it crucial Mana leader Hone Harawira holds his Te Tai Tokerau seat where a Maori TV poll put him just 1 point ahead of Labour's Kelvin Davis.
The latest dollops of election crazy have seen Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom accused of employment practices frowned on by Laila Harre, John Key and Winston Peters endorsing Kelvin Davis, and the mysterious departure of Colin Craig's press secretary, who reportedly called her ex-boss "manipulative".
Herald-Digipoll
National 48.2 (down 0.4 over last week)
Labour 25.9 (up 1.3)
Green 11.1 (down 0.4)
NZ First 8.4 (up 0.3)
Conservatives 3.3 (down 0.5)
internet Mana 1 (down 1.3)
Maori Party 1.1 (up 0.4)
Act 0.5 (up 0.2)
United Future 0.2 (up 0.2)
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Take your pick: National down, up in final polls
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