Christopher Luxon’s National Party has surged four points to open a five-point lead over Labour in the latest 1News Verian poll, its strongest result since February.
National is on 32%, up from 28% last week, while Labour slipped one point to 27%, meaning Chris Hipkins' party has registered its lowest result since the last election.
Even with Opportunity’s support, the left bloc can only reach a majority if Te Pāti Māori wins enough electorates to create an overhang in Parliament.
Hipkins has also dropped three points to 17% in the preferred prime minister rankings.
Bombshell 1News Verian poll delivers major election shake-up - Watch on TVNZ+
Opportunity remains kingmaker 18 days out from election day. (Source: 1News)
The Labour leader brushed off the result when asked by 1News, saying "one poll is not an election result" and that different polls were all concluding "very different things".
"We've got real momentum. We're getting great feedback on the ground," he said.
"Another poll out this morning had Labour ahead of National. I think it underscores the fact that it's going to be a very close election. Every vote's going to matter."
Luxon, out campaigning today as New Zealand’s free trade agreement with India came into force, said National’s “plan is working”.
"We know that what we've been doing is the right stuff. We just want more time, and we need another three years to get the job done," he said.
The share of voters who did not know who they would vote for, or refused to say, fell from 12% to 10% in tonight's poll.
Opportunity remains on track to enter Parliament for the first time with 7% support, down one point from last week.
Leader Qiulae Wong said she was happy her party’s support was “fairly steady”, and that it was “looking positive for us to get well over the 5% mark".
That’s the threshold for a party to get into Parliament.
National’s gain in the latest poll has come as its current coalition partners ACT climbed one point to 11% while NZ First fell two points to 8%.
NZ First leader Winston Peters lashed out at the result, saying the poll was "crap". He said his party would “do something about the TV1 polls” after the election.
“We’re going to make sure the people that concoct them are no longer wasting people’s time,” he said.
Leader Chris Hipkins said he remained “very confident” in the party’s campaign. (Source: 1News)
Asked whether that was a threat, Peters said: “It’s not a threat. I’m somebody with a political science degree… and I think it’s a tragedy that you’re misinforming people.”
Meanwhile Labour’s likely allies, the Greens, remain strong, up one point to 16%, while Te Pāti Māori remain under the 1% mark and reliant on winning a Māori electorate seat.
Polling took place as the Greens and Te Pāti Māori faced backlash from both the coalition and Labour after their candidates met with Mongrel Mob members. Hipkins ruled out either party holding key law and order portfolios in a government he led.
How the seat maths works out
On today’s numbers, National would win 38 seats, Labour 32, the Greens 19, ACT 13, NZ First nine and Opportunity eight.
The rest of the picture depends on some assumptions, as Te Pāti Māori’s party vote is too low to earn it more than one seat, but any electorates it does win would ultimately add seats to Parliament. 1News polling partner Verian models two scenarios for this.
In the first, Te Pāti Māori holds four electorates, and Te Tai Tokerau Party holds one, the seats their MPs hold now from the 2023 election. That would add four extra seats to Parliament, taking it to 124 and lifting the number needed to govern to 63.
National, ACT and NZ First would have 60 seats, three short of a majority.
Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Te Tai Tokerau would have 56, but Opportunity’s eight would take them to 64 and a governing majority.
In the second scenario, if Te Pāti Māori holds just one electorate, Parliament would have 120 seats, and 61 would be needed to have a majority.
The current coalition parties would again have 60, one short.
Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would have 52, and even with Opportunity they would be deadlocked with the right on 60 seats each.
With Opportunity, the right could govern in either of these two scenarios, but the left needs results in the electorates to go its way.
Luxon has, however, repeatedly ruled out working with the Opportunity Party. Wong believes he will change his mind if her MPs are needed to form a coalition.
Asked today whether he would pick up the phone if Wong called him after the November 7 election, he again refused to budge.
Wong said Luxon would be her first call if the result in tonight's poll was repeated on election night, describing his stance as “pretty baffling”.
“We will reach out if he doesn’t call us and give him one last chance to have that conversation, and if he doesn’t want to, if he really wants to be in opposition, then we will go and speak to Labour next,” she said.
Voters less pessimistic on the economy
Fewer voters are pessimistic about the economy in today’s poll than at any point this year, with just 21% expecting it to get worse over the next 12 months, down four points.
The share expecting it to improve rose four points to 43%.
That marks a sharp turnaround since April, when 52% expected the economy to worsen and 26% expected it to improve. That poll was taken weeks after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz triggered the fuel crisis.
Pessimism has fallen in every poll since then.
In the preferred prime minister rankings, Luxon held steady on 20%. Hipkins fell three points to 17%, after climbing from 14% to 20% across the previous two polls.
NZ First's Peters rose one point to 8%, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick rose one point to 7%, and ACT leader David Seymour rose one point to 5%.
See the full poll results and methodology
Between October 15 and October 19 2026, 1003 eligible voters were polled by mobile phone (500) and online using online panels (503). The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1%-points at the 95% confidence level. Party support percentages have been rounded up or down to whole numbers, except those less than 4.5%, which are reported to one decimal place. The data has been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and education level. The sample for mobile phones is selected by random dialling using probability sampling, and the online sample is collected using an online panel. 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.
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