The latest 1News Verian poll has National and Labour level on 28 percent, while the Greens have risen to 16 percent. The numbers could leave Opportunity holding the balance of power, but the seat projections depend on electorate results and post-election negotiations that no poll can settle
Report by eLocal
New Zealand's election contest has become increasingly fragmented, with the latest 1News Verian poll showing neither major party close to governing on its own and smaller parties accounting for a growing share of declared support.
The poll, conducted from 23 to 27 September among 1004 eligible voters, puts National and Labour together on just 56 percent of the party vote. National is on 28 percent, down one point from the previous 1News Verian poll, while Labour is also on 28 percent, down two. The Greens have risen four points to 16 percent, ACT is up two to 11 percent, NZ First is up one to 9 percent, and Opportunity has fallen two points but remains above the parliamentary threshold at 6 percent.
The poll has a maximum sampling error of approximately plus or minus 3.4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. Thirteen percent of those surveyed either did not know which party they would vote for or refused to say. Undecided voters, non-voters and refusals are excluded from the published party-support percentages.
What the Seat Numbers Actually Show
On the model reported by RNZ and 1News, National and Labour would each receive 34 seats, the Greens 19, ACT 14, NZ First 11 and Opportunity seven.
The complication is the Māori electorates. One model assumes Te Pāti Māori retains four electorate seats and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi's Te Tai Tokerau party wins Te Tai Tokerau. That would create an overhang and expand Parliament beyond the standard 120 seats. Under that scenario, Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity would collectively have 65 seats, compared with 59 for National, ACT and NZ First.
1News also modelled an alternative in which Te Pāti Māori wins only one electorate and Te Tai Tokerau does not win a seat. The Parliament would then remain at 120 seats. The broad negotiating position is similar: neither National, ACT and NZ First nor Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori has an obvious majority without Opportunity.
That distinction matters. The poll does not show that a Labour-led government has been elected, or even that one would necessarily be formed from these numbers. It shows what the party vote might produce if the poll were replicated at the election, combined with assumptions about electorate outcomes.
Opportunity Becomes the Pivot
Opportunity's 6 percent is therefore one of the most consequential numbers in the poll.
Party leader Qiulae Wong has previously said Opportunity is prepared to negotiate across traditional political blocs and wants to find areas of agreement with either Labour or National. Christopher Luxon has, however, ruled out National working with Opportunity, citing fundamental differences over tax and spending policy.
Labour has not ruled out working with Opportunity, although Chris Hipkins has rejected Opportunity's central tax proposals, including its land-tax programme. On 28 September, Hipkins said he would not discuss coalition deals before election day.
That leaves an important difference between arithmetic and political agreement. Adding parties together in a seat calculator does not itself create a government. Under MMP, parties must be able to reach agreements capable of maintaining the confidence of the House.
The Major-Party Squeeze
The deeper signal in the poll is not simply which conventional bloc has more seats. It is the continuing weakness of the two largest parties.
National and Labour are both on 28 percent. The Greens, ACT, NZ First and Opportunity together account for 42 percent of published party support. The result therefore points to a Parliament in which coalition partners could have substantial negotiating weight.
The Green result is particularly significant within the 1News Verian series. At 16 percent, it is the party's highest recorded result in that poll. If reproduced at the election, 1News calculates it would return 19 MPs.
Opportunity presents a different form of uncertainty. At 6 percent it is above the 5 percent threshold, but its support has moved materially between polls. Because a party that does not win an electorate generally needs at least 5 percent of the party vote to receive list seats, relatively small movements around that threshold can substantially alter parliamentary arithmetic.
Preferred Prime Minister Tells a Different Story
The preferred-prime-minister measure does not mirror the party vote exactly.
Christopher Luxon rose two points to 19 percent. Chris Hipkins fell one point to 14 percent. Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick rose two points to 8 percent, while David Seymour rose two points to 7 percent and Winston Peters remained on 7 percent.
These figures measure respondents' preferred prime minister rather than the party vote that largely determines the proportional composition of Parliament. They should therefore not be treated as an alternative election result.
A Poll Is a Measurement, Not an Election Result
The 2026 General Election is scheduled for 7 November, with advance voting beginning on 26 October.
Under MMP, voters have a party vote and an electorate vote. The party vote largely determines each qualifying party's total representation, while electorate contests determine the local MPs and can also affect whether parties below 5 percent enter Parliament.
This is particularly relevant to the current polling environment because the projected size of Parliament changes depending on Māori electorate outcomes. The Electoral Commission's rules also mean that a party winning an electorate can qualify for proportional seat allocation even if it receives less than 5 percent of the nationwide party vote.
The 1News Verian poll is therefore best read as a snapshot of declared voter preferences between 23 and 27 September. Its own methodology explicitly says the result is not a prediction.
What Does This Mean for New Zealand?
Will this in fact make New Zealand stronger? A poll cannot answer that question, and seat arithmetic alone says little about whether the next government will improve household purchasing power, productivity, infrastructure, competition, energy security, public finances or New Zealand's capacity to make independent long-term decisions.
What the poll does show is that the balance of political power may be becoming more dispersed. If a similar distribution were produced on election day, smaller parties could have greater leverage over the policy programme of whichever major party ultimately leads a government.
That can work in different directions. MMP can require broader negotiation and prevent a single party from implementing its programme without compromise. It can also produce policy trade-offs that voters did not see explicitly combined during the campaign. The practical test comes after the election, when coalition or confidence agreements reveal which policies survive negotiation and what fiscal, economic and institutional consequences follow.
For voters, the important distinction is therefore between polling arithmetic and governing policy. This poll measures support. It does not decide which coalition will be formed, which policies will be adopted, or whether the resulting programme will leave New Zealand economically and institutionally stronger.
Sources