Labour and National have both gained in the final 1News Verian poll of the election campaign as ACT and NZ First slip, with Opportunity remaining on course to holding the keys to the next government.
With four days to go until polling day, no party has a clear lead, and the race is shaping up as a possible photo finish between left and right.
Final 1News Verian poll reveals election cliffhanger - Watch on TVNZ+
Chris Hipkins’ Labour are up two points since last week to 29%, while Christopher Luxon’s National are up one point to 30%. The Greens are on 16%, up one.
Government coalition parties ACT and NZ First each fall two, to 10% and 8% respectively. That leaves the right bloc on 58 seats if today’s results are repeated on Saturday.
The poll follows some jockeying inside the coalition with both ACT and NZ First backing vote-splitting tactics, which National strongly opposes.
Both minor parties lost support in this poll, which could suggest the campaign has not gained the traction National feared.
The left bloc – of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori – would have 56 or 60 MPs, depending how the Māori seats are calculated – also short of the numbers needed.
That leaves only one party left to negotiate with – Opportunity.
The party's support of 6% – steady on last week’s poll – brings it seven MPs and both blocs would need their backing to form a government.
Undecided voters have fallen two points to 9% in the past week as the election looms and with more than a million people having already voted with four days to go.
In the preferred prime minister rankings, Luxon is down 1 point to 23% this week, while Hipkins is up 1 point to 19%, closing the gap that opened up last week.
Coalition maths flips
On these figures, the right bloc dropped from 61 seats last week to 58.
Last week, the coalition could have governed alone if Te Pāti Māori fell to one seat, leaving a 121-seat Parliament where 61 is enough. That's no longer the case with the scenario that the right coalition is now three short of a majority.
If Te Pāti Māori holds four seats and Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi keeps hers, Parliament grows to 125 MPs and 63 are needed to govern.
The coalition would then be five short.
On the other hand, the picture has improved for the left.
Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Kapa-Kingi would hold 60 seats in a 125-seat Parliament. With Opportunity’s seven MPs, that rises to 67, four more than needed.
But leader Chris Hipkins believes they're gaining traction at just the right time. (Source: 1News)
Even if Te Pāti Māori falls to one seat, the left bloc’s 56 seats plus Opportunity’s seven would reach 63 in a 121-seat Parliament. That is two more than the 61 needed.
How have the leaders reacted to the final poll?
National leader Christopher Luxon said “the only poll that matters” was on Saturday.
“We’re going to work really hard up until midnight Friday to make sure that New Zealanders understand the plan is working. Stick with the plan. Don’t leave it half done."
Luxon repeated the same campaign lines throughout the interview.
When asked, Labour leader Chris Hipkins claimed his party had “developed some real momentum" in the last few weeks of this campaign. “I’m feeling increasingly optimistic, but there’s still a lot of work to do. It’s going to be a close election,” he said.
Asked whether Te Pāti Māori had come far enough for Labour to work with, Hipkins said: “We haven’t really had many conversations with them.”
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong, whose party holds the balance of power on these numbers, said more support would give it “more leverage around the table and more ability to bring stability to the next term of government”.
“Obviously, we’ve said we would speak to the party with the largest number of seats first. That might take waiting for the special votes to come in if it is very close. So, we’re going to have to wait and see how the results turn out on Saturday night,” she said.
ACT leader David Seymour said only that it would be “a very tight election” and “every party vote for ACT will count”.
"We'll be happy with whatever result the voters give us, but we ask them to give their party vote ACT to re-elect the coalition, to make it go further and faster."
Meanwhile, NZ First leader Winston Peters dismissed the result of this poll, telling 1News its polls were “trash” and “humbug research”.
“Your numbers are of no value to anyone. I’m not wasting my time talking about them."
Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the party was ready for around 20 MPs, if the poll was repeated, describing its list as “an incredibly diverse and incredibly well-suited group of people who are ready to govern on behalf of regular, hardworking New Zealanders”.
Luxon's preferred leader lead narrows
Luxon remains the most preferred PM but slips one point from his campaign-best result to 23%. Hipkins rises one to 19%, cutting the gap between them from six points to four.
Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick is up one point to 8%, NZ First leader Winston Peters is down one to 6%, and ACT leader David Seymour is down one to 5%.
Economic optimism also continues to climb steadily, as it has done over the past few weeks.
Nearly half of voters (49%) now expect the economy to improve over the next 12 months, up three points and at the highest level since 2020. Pessimism holds at 22%.
The National wildcard
The two aforementioned seat count scenarios leave out one possible twist which has increasingly taken focus with the vote split campaign – the potential of National candidates winning more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to in Parliament.
In this poll, National’s party vote entitled it to 36 seats. But if it wins more electorates than that, it keeps those extra seats, known as an overhang, and Parliament would grow to fit them in. National won 44 electorates three years ago.
The result has occurred five times since MMP voting was introduced in 1996 but it's getting more attention than ever. (Source: 1News)
In the 121-seat scenario, where Te Pāti Māori falls to one seat, National would need around five or six extra seats to close off Labour’s route to power with Opportunity.
Asked whether the poll possibly suggested the vote-splitting push wasn’t working, Peters called it an “extraordinary ill-informed comment”.
See the full poll results and methodology
Between October 29 and November 2 2026, 1006 eligible voters were polled by mobile phone (500) and online using online panels (506). 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.
Party vote results to one decimal place were: National 29.5%, Labour 28.8%, Greens 16.4%, ACT 10.0%, NZ First 8.4%, Opportunity 6.2% and Te Pāti Māori 0.4%.
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