The personal ratings of New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, have dipped, polling shows, as his government’s handling of the economy fails to impress voters ahead of the November election.
The RNZ-Reid Research poll, released on Monday, also found a growing number of people felt that New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction.
Luxon slid two points to 17.3% in the preferred prime minister stakes – his lowest result across major polls since he became leader in 2023. Labour’s Chris Hipkins also dipped 0.4 points, to 20.7%.
The prime minister’s net favourability – the difference between those who rate his performance as good versus poor – has also dropped from -14 in January to -20.6, his weakest result in the Reid Research series since he became National’s leader in 2021.
Meanwhile, Luxon’s National party has slipped nearly five points behind the main opposition party, Labour. If an election were held today, the parliamentary left and rights blocs would face a hung parliament.
Speaking to RNZ on Monday, Luxon said: “People don’t talk about polls.
“Right now, I’m very much focused on navigating fuel supply challenges and minimising the impacts on Kiwis.”
The poll, conducted in mid-March during the escalating tensions in the Middle East and the global energy crisis, showed support for National dropping one point to 30.8%, while its coalition partners Act sat at 7% and New Zealand First on 10.6%.
In the left bloc, Labour rose 0.6 points to 35.6%, the Greens were at 10.1% and Te Pāti Māori (the Māori party) on 3.2%.
Of those surveyed, half of respondents said New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction – a four point increase since January – compared with 32.3% who thought the country was on the right track.
A second Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll in March showed just 28.4% support for National triggering questions over Luxon’s leadership and forcing the prime minister to quell speculation he would step down.
Polls during 2025 were often unfavourable towards Luxon and the coalition, which is unusual for a first-term government in New Zealand. Should November’s general election reflect the polls, it would mark the first time a first-term government has failed to secure a second term since the introduction of the country’s mixed-member proportional parliamentary system in 1993.
The coalition government campaigned on promises to fix New Zealand’s economy, which was battered by recession and stagnation after the Covid-19 pandemic, and introduced a wave of policies to try to achieve this recovery, including relaxing immigration settings to attract foreign investment and reducing public spending.
But while there have been flickers of improvement, recovery has been slow. The economy grew just 0.2% in the December quarter, which was weaker than expectations and the war in the Middle East threatens to upend progress further.
Ben Thomas, a political commentator, said the economy and the global conditions are the “biggest drag” on the coalition’s popularity.
“This is the first long term cost-of-living crisis that we’ve had for a long time … One that falls much more evenly over the electorate and so it’s going to have a wider dispersion in terms of negatively impacting the voter sentiment.”
Thomas said Luxon lacked the “charisma” of previous prime ministers.
“He doesn’t have a buffer, the sort of personal charisma, that some of his predecessors – John Key and Jacinda Ardern – had,” Thomas said.
“He’s not an exceptional generational performer in that sense, so his fortunes are much more directly exposed to what people are feeling every day in their hip pockets.”
