Major parties try new policies to reconnect with their bases, National re-writes its risk pitch, fiscal frustrations, & what stuck from the first leaders debate. ANALYSIS By Tim Watkin What’s a right-leaning voter to do? The past few weeks have seen debates about strategic voting as polls have consistently placed National below 30 percent and a centre-left bloc, Opportunity permitting, more likely to form a government. It means voters wanting to give the existing coalition the best chance of remaining in power are wracking their brains on where to cast their ballot. Stick, twist, or return? And, in turn, that means the strategists in National, New Zealand First, and ACT, are trying to figure out not just how to win the “soft centre” but how to steal from each other. [wk_audio]a6dfa00f-eb36-49ba-8f7d-02a109828beb As deputy political editor Craig McCulloch says in this week’s Caucus episode, National wants to be fishing for voters who will add to the overall centre-right bloc, especially the undecideds (approximately 11% in the TVNZ-Verian poll and 6% in the RNZ-Reid Research poll) and those who are dallying with Opportunity. They are the most useful and consequential votes to be won. But with Labour polling as badly as National and New Zealand First and ACT both polling well by their own standards, the party in blue is in a bind. The soft centre will be hard to crack. And at 25.9 percent in the RNZ poll, National is nearing its humiliating 2020 result of 25.6 percent, just without the leadership changes and pandemic. So, does it behave like a leader of the pack or does it grab the nearest life-raft and go after traditional National voters who have drifted – or strategically shifted – to its coalition partners? ACT, for example, is on nine percent in both the TVNZ and RNZ polls. For a party that got 0.5 percent in 2017 and had its best-ever result of 8.6 percent in 2023, it’s a strong number. But eight weeks out from the last election ACT was on 12 percent. National won back roughly three percent from ACT late in that campaign and has to be wondering how it can do that again. And can it also go after Team Winston? Its medicines policy, released this week, did just that. It boldly stomped into ACT and New Zealand First territory. Or as Political Editor Jo Moir says in the podcast, “National is, in an election campaign, trying to pull back the narrative”… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
