Verian poll: National on 29%, Labour on 28%, Opportunity Party holds balance

National is on 29% support in the 1News Verian poll, one point ahead of Labour on 28%. Neither bloc can govern without the Opportunity Party.

National rose one point to 29%, according to the poll reported on 6 October 2026 RNZ. Labour was unchanged on 28%. The Greens were on 16%. New Zealand First was on 10%, up one point. ACT was on 9%, down two points. The Opportunity Party was on 7%, up one point. Te Pāti Māori was on 1%.

The Greens' 16% is its highest result in a 1News-Verian poll. That level was first reached in the poll reported on 28 September 1News.

TVNZ's seat projection puts National on 35 MPs, New Zealand First on 12 and ACT on 11. That is 58 seats together. Labour would take 33 MPs, the Greens 20 and Te Pāti Māori one, for 54 together. Under MMP, 61 seats are needed for a majority. The Opportunity Party would take eight MPs and decide the result. The maths assumes all parties return to Parliament, with seats shared roughly in line with party vote.

Undecided voters stood at 11%. That compares with 6% undecided in the RNZ-Reid Research poll. In that poll, Labour was at 31% and National at 26%.

Verian interviewed 1001 eligible voters between 1 and 5 October 2026, with 501 contacted by mobile phone and 500 online through panels. The maximum sampling error, the normal range of uncertainty from asking a sample, was about ±3.1 points at 95% confidence. Results were weighted to match Stats NZ counts for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and education level. Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer were excluded from party support.

A separate series recorded different numbers. In September 2026, the Roy Morgan New Zealand poll put the National-led Government on 52% and the Labour-led parliamentary Opposition on 41.5%, with the National-led lead increasing Roy Morgan.

The latest Verian result is a small shift from the prior release. In the poll reported on 28 September, National and Labour were both on 28%, for 34 seats each. The Greens on 16% would have received 19 MPs then.

The broader context here is fragmentation, not momentum. The one-point gap sits well within sampling error. The 58 projected seats for National, ACT and New Zealand First compares with 54 for Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, and both are well short of 61 without the Opportunity Party's eight.

Looking at what this means for the campaign, the leverage sits with a party on 7%. The Opportunity Party already held the kingmaker spot in the RNZ-Reid Research poll, and Verian repeats that shape with a larger undecided group. At 11%, against 6% in Reid Research, there is more scope for late movement, with fieldwork split across mobile and online panels and weighted across five population groups.