Stand back and watch.
That's Winston Peters' infamous line that he repeats to media daily, repeatedly claiming the polls don't show the real story and there's some form of silent majority that'll come home to roost in his favour.
History shows he's usually wrong.
New Zealand First got 6% in the final 1News poll in 2023 before the election, their final result was 6.1%. In 2020 the final poll had New Zealand First on 2.6%, their final result was 2.6%. In 2014, the poll had them at 8% and they got a little more with 8.7%.
He did have the last laugh in 2017 though, when the last 1News poll had NZ First on 4.9%, below the threshold to get into Parliament, but they got 7.2% and nine MPs.
Luckily Peters and the rest of the political leaders have one more poll to dig into before election day.
The final 1News Verian poll of this campaign will be released tonight, revealing who has the upper hand on claiming power in one of the closest elections in a generation.
Over the past couple of weeks I've written about the potential for an overhang on both sides of the political spectrum and the implications that could come with that for a result each way.
But there's one factor that could sway the vote in a certain direction - turnout.
So far, nearly one million New Zealanders have already voted. To be exact, 913,762 as of yesterday.
That's an increase of more than 200,000 on the same stage last election, but a decrease of 200,000 on 2020 (what's more commonly known as the Covid election, so a one-off case).
What history tells us
What could the turnout mean for the result in this year's election?
Well, past elections indicate something of a trend.
In 1996 it was the first MMP election. A very impressive 88.3% turned out to vote, electing Jim Bolger's National government for a third term, albeit in coalition with his recent defectee Winston Peters' brand new New Zealand First party.
However, as you're about to see, that election's turnout was something of an outlier.
Here's the turnout each election since and who won.
1999 84.8% - Labour wins
2002 77.0% - Labour wins
2005 80.9% - Labour wins
2008 79.5% - National wins
2011 74.2% - National wins
2014 77.9% - National wins
2017 79.8% - Labour wins
2020 82.2% - Labour wins
2023 78.2% - National wins
The three times that turnout has eclipsed 80%, the left has won the election. In 2017, when the proportion of people voting was just below that, Labour won but with a lower vote than for their other victories.
This is not to say that if turnout eclipsed 80% this election that it would mean that Labour and its partners would secure victory. But it is to say that there would be greater enthusiasm out there one way or the other - either for change, or a worry about what change might look like.
However, the reasonably high turnout this time so far may not be all bad for National.
In 2023 they performed better with the advanced vote than the election day vote.
National secured 40.88% of the advanced vote.
Their final result went on to drop back to 38.06%.
As to the overall count for this year's election, we'll have to wait until election night to find out. But so far, voters are flocking to the polls much more so than they did three years ago.
SHARE ME