A new poll conducted by Newshub-Reid Research shows ACT continuing to siphon away the National Party's support.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
In the poll released tonight, ACT has risen to 16 percent support in party vote preference, up 4.9 percent from an August poll, while National has dropped to 26.9 percent, down 1.8 percent.
"The minor party is minor no more," Newshub political editor Tova O'Brien wrote, as ACT leader David Seymour has been building support on the right of National.
The poll, conducted between 10-17 November, showed Labour at 42.7 percent support, holding nearly steady from a previous poll in August where they were at 43 percent.
The Greens were at 7.2 percent support, down 1.3 percent, while Te Pāti Māori and New Zealand First both were around 2 percent.
If an election were held today, Labour and the Greens would still be able to hold power, but based on Newshub's polling ACT would double its MPs to 20.
O'Brien said the falling support for the National Party showed that leader Judith Collins' time is running out.
"The question isn't so much: 'To coup or not to coup', but whether to roll now or roll out a 2022 coup debut," she wrote.
Collins' leadership of National has been questioned since she led the party to a landslide defeat in 2020's election.
ACT's Seymour also continued to rate higher than Collins in the preferred prime minister rankings in Newshub's poll, with 11.9 percent naming Seymour and 6.1 percent naming Collins.
"We're not into crushing people," Seymour told Newshub when asked about his party's rise in support.
Both of them were still well short of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's 41.7 percent support, which was down 3.8 percent from a previous poll.
National's Christopher Luxon and former leader Simon Bridges, both who have been mooted as possible replacement for Collins, both ranked at 2.5 percent support.
Another poll last week by 1News Colmar Brunton found Labour Party support at 41 percent, National at 28 percent, ACT at 14 percent and the Greens at 9 percent.
The Newshub-Reid poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.