Photo: RNZ
Five months out from the election, the latest Newshub-Reid political poll shows Te Pāti Māori could hold the keys to power, with the two main parties running neck and neck.
The poll, released this evening, had Labour at 35.9 percent, down 2.1 points; while National are down 1.3 points to 35.3 percent.
The poll also shows ACT is at 10.8 percent, up just 0.1 percent, while the Greens are on 8.1 percent, unchanged despite recent problems within the party.
Te Pāti Māori are at 3.5 percent and on current polling could get five seats, which would enable it to form a government with Labour and the Greens.
Assuming it wins an electorate, that would give it five seats in the House, which with Labour's 46 and the Greens' 10 is enough to reach the 61 seat threshold to form a government.
New Zealand First has risen 0.8 points to 3 percent - still not enough to return to Parliament.
National ruled out working with the Māori Party last week, which could make the party's attempts to form a government that much harder.
Chris Hipkins' personal popularity as prime minister - just under four months since he took office - is now at 23.4 percent, up 3.8 points.
But National leader Christopher Luxon was down 2.4 points to 16.4 percent as preferred prime minister, his lowest point in Newshub's poll so far.
That is lower than the 18.4 percent that former National leader Judith Collins scored in a similar Newshub poll before losing the 2020 election in a landslide.
The election is set for 14 October, exactly five months from today.
Another question by Newshub asked voters if they thought leaders were in touch with the issues - 49.9 percent agreed Hipkins was in touch, but the results were almost the exact opposite for Luxon, and 47 percent said he was out of touch with the problems affecting New Zealanders today.
Other polls continue to point towards a tight election.
A Taxpayers Union-Curia poll released last week had Labour dropping to 33.8 percent while National was at 35.6 percent.
That poll had ACT picking up 3.2 percentage points compared to the previous survey, bringing its support to 12.7 percent, almost equivalent to the 3.1 percentage points Labour lost. In that poll the Green Party gained 0.3 to 7 percent, and Te Pāti Māori gained 0.8 to 3.7.
A 1News Kantar poll conducted in March showed Labour leading National by a tight margin, 36 to 34 percent, with the Greens and ACT both at 11 percent.
Since Newshub's last poll in January, there has been the flooding in Auckland, Cyclone Gabrielle, the sacking of Stuart Nash, the defection of Meka Whaitiri to Te Pāti Māori, the resignation of Dr Elizabeth Kerekere from the Greens, and National's decision to rule out working with Te Pāti Māori.