Labour is down five points to 32 percent in the latest 1News Verian poll, but could form a government with the Greens and Te Pati Maori.
Between them, the left bloc would have 64 seats to the right bloc’s 60 seats, although that assumes Te Pāti Māori would retain all six of their electorate seats.
With National down slightly, the results point to the major parties’ lowest level of support since the first MMP election in 1996 and its lowest under leader Christopher Luxon in the Verian poll.
Uncertainty appeared to be increasing with 14 percent of those surveyed saying they did not know or were refusing to say who they would vote for, an increase of 5 percent.
ACT’s minor decrease was the party’s fourth consecutive fall in the Verian poll.
For parties outside Parliament, a 1.6-percent bump for Opportunity puts them at 4.6 percent – within a sniff of the 5 percent threshold that would guarantee the party entrance to Parliament without needing an electorate seat.
The bad news for Labour continued in the preferred prime minister stakes, with leader Chris Hipkins dropping below Luxon.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Education Minister Erica Stanford, former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, and senior Labour MP Kieran McAnulty all registered at 1 percent.
The poll surveyed 1001 eligible voters and was weighted for demographics, with a margin of error of 3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval. It was conducted between 13 and 17 June using a combination of mobile phone calls and online panels.
Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on party support. The results are a snapshot in time of party support, and not a prediction.
Polls compare to the most recent poll by the same polling company, as different polls can use different methologies. They are intended to track trends in voting preferences, showing a snapshot in time, rather than be a completely accurate predictor of the final election result.
