Vote Compass results have revealed which electorates are the most left and right-leaning as the country heads to the polls.
The most left-leaning polling areas were all Māori electorates - Te Tai Tonga, Tāmaki Makaurau, Waiariki, and Te Tai Tokerau.
Wellington Central, Rongotai, Panmure-Otahuhu, Dunedin and Mt Albert were the five most left-leaning general electorates.
Some electorates have shifted considerably since the data was last collected in 2020. (Source: 1News)
At the other end of the political spectrum the top five most right-leaning electorates were Papakura, Tauranga, Whangaparaoa, Tukituki and Port Waikato.
The results were compiled from more than 180,000 respondents to Vote Compass, an online survey tool run with 1News which helps voters understand how their views line up with party policies.
In Wellington Central, the most left-leaning seat, voters are facing a fresh line-up of candidates in an electorate that hasn't gone to any party except Labour for nearly three decades.
The incumbent, Labour's Grant Robertson, has taken a list-only position this year.
In the last election, he won a resounding victory, gaining 27,000 votes to National candidate Nicola Willis' 8300 and Green candidate James Shaw's 8400.
Locals 1News spoke to on Tuesday were mostly unsurprised by the result. In 2020, the most left-leaning electorate was nearby in Rongotai, according to Vote Compass.
Furthest to the right
Meanwhile, further up north, Papakura was ranked as the most right-leaning electorate this year.
The electorate is large - covering parts of suburbia, rural townships, and swathes of farmland on the outskirts of Southeast Auckland.
Its current MP is former National Party leader Judith Collins - who has held the seat since 2008 when it was first created. The electorate is regarded as a safe National seat.
Papakura Local Board chairperson Brent Catchpole said the area of the Parliamentary electorate was "very broad".
"Some parts of it are lower socioeconomic. Then you've got higher-value properties around Karaka, and also out to Beachlands and Maraetai."
Catchpole said it would be "very interesting" to watch the party vote results in the electorate come October 14.
Vote Compass data also indicates the electorates which have seen the greatest movement from 2020 to 2023.
The electorates that have shifted most to the right, as compared to their position three years ago, are Epsom, Mt Albert, Te Tau Hauauru, Papakura and Rongotai.
Meanwhile, those that have shifted most to the left include Banks Peninsula, West Coast-Tasman, Rangitata, Taieri and Southland.
Vote Compass has now been completed by more than 580,000 people during this election campaign.
What is Vote Compass?
By using Vote Compass, New Zealanders can find out which political parties they are with on the key issues facing the country
You can choose to agree or disagree with 30 statements about issues like health, education, the environment, and tax. Vote Compass will then analyse your answers with the policies of different parties and show you how similar they are to your own views.
Where do you sit? Find out here at: 1News.co.nz/VoteCompass
University of Auckland associate professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment said the results from the tool also serve as a way to gauge the public's insights on hot topics, as they are tabulated by researchers every few days.
Lees-Marshment said the results on key issues reported from Vote Compass would help "elevate" the voice of the public for how politicians and the media discussed the election.
The online tool launched today helps put the focus on policies, not just personalities. (Source: 1News)
Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in New Zealand exclusively by 1 News/TVNZ. The findings are based on 182,682 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from September 10 to October 6, 2023. Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected. Similar to opinion polls, however, the data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample. Vote Compass data have been weighted by gender, age, education, personal income, Māori descent, region and partisanship to ensure the sample's composition reflects that of the actual population of New Zealand according to census data and other population estimates.
A statistical scaling algorithm was used to reduce dimensionality and translate the responses to the 30 questions included in Vote Compass to one and two dimensions respectively. The unidimensional representation translates answers to a traditional left-right axis, while the bi-dimensional representation translates answers following the used in the results page of Vote Compass (with an economic and a social dimension).
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