Small Parties Benefit From Poor Govt. Polling

The latest Herald Digipoll published today shows more worries for the government and a swing towards smaller parties rather than the big two.

The enlarged poll shows Labour with 41.8 per cent of the party vote, down three points since May and National is down two points to 34.6 per cent.

And while the main parties keep losing ground, the smaller parties keep picking it up. The Alliance is up one point to 8.9 per cent and ACT just manages to clear the threshold with 5.1 per cent.

The Green Party have jumped in the polls to 2.5 per cent which, if Jeanette Fitzsimons wins the Coromandel seat, would give the Greens three seats in Parliament. See… Greens Surge In Latest Poll in the Parliament wire.

New Zealand First have dropped to 2.2 per cent and now trail the Green Party, however they too could win seats in the House if they could win an electorate such as Tauranga, Te Tai Tonga or Whangarei.

This poll shows that Labour and the Alliance would hold a 14 seat majority if an election were to be held tomorrow, with possibly an extra three seats if all goes well for the Greens in Coromandel.

The poll shows farmers turning their backs on National with Labour outpolling them by ten percentage points in the rural heartland.

The poll was taken over a week and completed yesterday. The sample has a 3.3 per cent margin of error.

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