New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and the National Party are losing traction in the latest polling cycle, while coalition partner NZ First — led by the perennial political survivor Winston Peters — continues to gain ground, according to Stuff coverage of the latest survey.
The dynamic is more significant than a routine mid-term adjustment. If NZ First's gains are coming at the direct expense of National — drawing right-leaning voters away from the larger coalition partner rather than from Labour or the Greens — it fundamentally changes the internal balance of the government. Peters, who has been playing coalition politics since before many of his current cabinet colleagues were born, does not gain on his partners by accident.
Winston Peters has been a fixture of New Zealand politics since the 1970s. He entered parliament in 1979, served under both National and Labour governments, and has demonstrated a consistent ability to position NZ First as the corrective voice against whoever the primary partner in government happens to be. He did it to National before. He is apparently doing it again.
Luxon's challenge is structural as much as personal. He entered office as a corporate turnaround specialist — a brand that was compelling during a cost-of-living crisis when voters wanted a managerial alternative to what they perceived as Labour's ideological excess. That pitch has a limited shelf life. Once in government, the question becomes not what you promise but what you deliver, and National's coalition has faced criticism from its own base on everything from Treaty principles legislation to the pace of economic reform.
NZ First's recent gains appear tied to the coalition's internal tensions over the Treaty Principles Bill — legislation Peters' party drove but which strained relations with National's more cautious centrists — and a broader perception that Luxon's government lacks conviction on the issues that motivate the coalition's base.
For Labour and the Greens, the polling is not yet the breakthrough they need, but the erosion of National's position provides a path. The New Zealand electoral system, with its combination of electorate seats and proportional list, rewards coalition arithmetic over raw vote shares. A fragmented right is easier to dislodge than a unified one.
Peters himself is 79 and has indicated he will contest the next election. In four decades of New Zealand politics, betting against him has been a reliable way to lose money.
