pn853. Roy Morgan January Poll has National-ACT Ahead, But ....

 It's all a bit confusing with voting intentions going one way and confidence ratings the other —not to mention the marked differences between the Roy Morgan and 1NewsKantar polls and that the Morgan polls generally favour National —but the Morgan poll confirms that support for Labour continues to drop, and there's now a possibility it could lose the next election, an unthinkable prospect a month or so ago.

The poll comes against a background of Parliament in recess and the media's ongoing focus on Covid. Things could change now as parliament discusses a  range of issues, as Covid restrictions are eased,  and as the public react to the anti-vaxx protesters. 

The Morgan poll has National-ACT with 49.5% voter support and Labour-Greens with 43.5%. Even with the support of the Māori Party they would not have enough support to form a government. This is a surprising reversal given that most commentators were talking of a near certain Labour third term as government.  

But, as usual, not all is as it seems. 

There can be little doubt that the gap between the main parties has decreased but the 1NewsKantar poll (see pn843, pn845) taken after the Morgan poll  had a very different result.  Labour-Greens had 49% support and National-ACT 43% (see table below).    

It is also reasonably clear that the Roy Morgan polls tend to favour National.  The table compares the two sets of poll results, showing that in almost all polls since late 2020 Morgan under-stated the Labour-Greens position and over-stated National-ACT's. "Over" statements were where Morgan reported a more favourable result than Kantar, and "under" statements a less favourable result. Morgan poll results clearly  favour National-ACT (although it could be argued that Kantar favours Labour-Greens).  Why this should be so is unclear but it's probably a result of different polling methods.

It is also not clear why the Morgan question on whether the country was heading in the right or wrong direction was at odds with the way those polled intended to vote. 48.5% (up 6%) of those polled thought we were heading in the right direction and 42% (down 2.5%) said the wrong direction. Nearly 10% said they did not know.   

It will be interesting to see what the mainstream media make of these results. I hope they'll compare and analyse and not merely report the results.

-- ACW