National slides to record low in latest poll, while the Opportunity party holds the balance of power
National has dropped to 29.1 percent support in the latest RNZ-Reid Research poll — its lowest result in the series — while Labour has failed to pick up the voters National lost. The Opportunity party has crossed the five percent threshold, putting it in position to decide which side forms a government. The August 2026 poll, published on 23 August, confirms a pattern visible since March: the combined vote for the two major parties keeps shrinking, and neither the governing bloc nor a Labour-led alternative can reach the 61 seats needed to govern on current numbers. RNZ
National's 29.1 percent is down from 30.8 percent in March and 32.9 percent in July — a steady slide across three successive polls. Labour led the field, but as RNZ's framing put it, "National's pain is no gain for Labour": voters leaving National are not moving to the main opposition party in anything like proportionate numbers. The combined major party vote now sits at 62.7 percent, down from 66.4 percent in March and 66.9 percent in January. That fragmentation has opened the door for the Opportunity party, which the poll gives six seats after crossing the five percent threshold. Under MMP, a party needs 61 seats to form a government; with those six seats, Opportunity holds the balance of power, meaning neither the three governing parties nor a Labour-led alternative can get there without them. RNZ
The governing parties were mostly unchanged from the July poll and could not form a government on those numbers. On the opposition side, the poll found little appetite for a Labour leadership change: 43 percent of respondents said a new leader would not help Labour's chances, while 29.7 percent said it would and 27.4 percent said something else. Those figures date from a July RNZ-Reid Research survey, but the broader picture has not shifted. RNZ
Christopher Luxon's personal standing has declined alongside his party's. His net favourability sits at -22.9 percent, and he trails Chris Hipkins on preferred prime minister, 19.9 percent to 21.3 percent. The gap is narrow, but it is the first time in the RNZ-Reid Research series that Luxon has rated behind Hipkins on that measure. RNZ
The country's mood has soured as well. A net -20.9 percent of voters said the country is headed in the wrong direction, worse than -11.8 percent in the July poll. That near-doubling of negative sentiment in a single month suggests something beyond ordinary mid-term drift — the phase in a government's term where support typically dips — though the poll cannot isolate a specific cause. RNZ
The sharpest political flashpoint is Luxon's decision to rule out working with the Opportunity party. That call, reported by RNZ, triggered discontent within the National caucus, according to the same source. The logic is straightforward: if the three governing parties cannot reach a majority on their own, and the Opportunity party holds six seats, then ruling them out narrows the coalition math to a degree the caucus is unlikely to tolerate quietly. Whether that discontent hardens into open revolt will depend on whether National's numbers recover before the election or keep falling. RNZ
Reid Research's own results page shows Te Pāti Māori at 5.6 percent, TOP at 1.8 percent, and New Conservatives at 1.1 percent, though those figures are undated and should be treated as indicative rather than tied to the August wave. Reid Research
The broader context here is that the August poll is the clearest signal yet that the 2026 election will hinge on a minor party holding leverage well beyond its vote share. Opportunity at six seats, with National unable to form a government and Labour unable to absorb National's losses, places that party at the centre of every plausible coalition arrangement. Luxon's refusal to deal with them is therefore not just a messaging decision; it is a structural constraint on his own coalition options. If the caucus reads the polls the way the polls read, the pressure on that position will mount.
What matters as much as the snapshot is the trajectory. National has gone from 32.9 percent in July to 30.8 percent in March to 29.1 percent now — a consistent decline across successive polls. Labour has not gained from it. The wrong-direction figure has nearly doubled in a month. And the leader of the opposition now outranks the prime minister on preferred PM, however narrowly. Each of those indicators on its own is manageable. Taken together, they describe a government losing altitude without a clear beneficiary.
