KEY INSIGHTS
Based on four Taxpayers’ Union Curia Polls from September to December 2024, and comparing political party preference vs how those same voters rate the best political party performers across nine key issues:
- National polls 38%, but is rated 48% by us for their performance.
- In other words, if we voted based on how we rate performance, National would be polling ~48%.
- This 10 percentage point (+25%) difference is significant. It could be the difference between needing a three or two-party coalition or being a single-party majority.
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- Labour polls 30%, which is very close to their performance score of 31%
. - ACT, NZ First, Greens, and Te Pāti Māori all have polling scores 24-38% higher than how we rate their performance
. - Collectively, the Opposition polls 3 percentage points above their performance, and the Coalition polls 3 percentage points below their performance, for a 6 percentage point swing overall. This is the difference between a 44:56 and 41:59 voting split between the left and right blocks (12 vs 18 points).
KEY QUESTION
Which of the following factors influence this voting bias differential between polling and performance scores the most?
- Preferred Prime Minister/relatability/likeability
- Media bias = not fairly reporting political performance or the wishes of the people
- Social media bias = reinforcing eco-chambers, and selective censoring
- Academic bias = swaying how students vote
- Employment bias, e.g., unions, public sector/service, beneficiaries, business owners, other industry bias, e.g., creative arts vs. economics
- Personality bias, e.g., ‘thinkers’ vs. ‘feelers’ on a Myers Briggs Personality Test (across a sample of 125,877 from MBTI, men were 71% thinkers vs. 29% feelers, and women were 42% thinkers vs 58% feelers. In other words, women are twice as likely to be feelers as men, and men are more than twice as likely to be thinkers than feelers.)
- Gender bias = voting for a party (or not for another) because of the gender of their leader(s)
- Racial bias = voting for a party (or not for another) because of the ethnic mix of their leader(s)
- Goliath bias = an aversion to voting for the biggest party(s), similar to not buying from the biggest brands/businesses. Possibly due to not wanting to repeat a single-party majority.
- Other self-interests, e.g., religious beliefs, personal health/palliative care experiences, property interests, criminal activities
- Parental bias = “I vote for ____ because Mum/Dad have always voted for _____”
- Peer pressure = swaying how friends, colleagues, and community members vote
- Low engagement voters = just not putting enough thought or care into political performance measures
- Data inaccessibility = outside of KPI.nz, is anyone making it easy and objective for voters to compare performance?
- The other issues that make up 29% of voter issue ratings/weightings
- Something else?
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HAVE YOUR SAY
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FULL DATA ANALYSIS
Please contact us if you would like the full data set and research.
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ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- We have included all available data provided to us by the Taxpayers’ Union and Curia. This includes September, October, November, and December polling for 2024, and represents a samples size of n = 4,000.
- The questions asked were:
- If another general election were held today, what is the most important issue to you that would influence how you would vote? That issue could be about the parties, the leaders, local candidates, or international, national, or local issues? What is the second and third most important issues?
- Under the MMP system, you have two votes – one for the party and another for the electorate candidate. Taking the party vote, which party do you think you would vote for if another election was held today?
- Even if it’s only a slight leaning, which Party are you leaning towards voting for?
- Following are some phrases and characteristics about political parties. For each phrase could you please indicate how important this is to you in determining your vote on a 0 to 10 a scale where 0 is totally unimportant and 10 is extremely important
- Can manage the economy, spending and debt
- Can provide a reliable and accessible health system
- Will reduce poverty in New Zealand
- Can manage inflation and the cost of living
- Will provide a high quality education system
- Will not increase taxes on you
- Will make people feel safer in their communities
- Will reduce wasteful government spending
- Will make housing more affordable
- Will protect the environment
- Now for each of the same phrases please indicate whether you think it is a better descriptor of the National Party, the Labour Party, the ACT Party, the NZ First Party, the Greens Party or Te Pati Maori. Please try to choose one even if it just slightly describes one over the other.
- We have matched 9 issues listed by voters against those performance statements above as follows:
- Cost of living/Prices/Wages = Can manage inflation and the cost of living
- Economy/Economic Growth = Can manage the economy, spending and debt
- Health (excluding Coronavirus) = Can provide a reliable and accessible health system
- Education/Schools = Will provide a high quality education system
- Law & Order/Safety/Police/Crime = Will make people feel safer in their communities
- Welfare/Poverty/Income Inequality = Will reduce poverty in New Zealand
- Housing = Will make housing more affordable
- Environment (incl climate change) = Will protect the environment
- Taxes = Will not increase taxes on you
- The 10th statement, “Will reduce wasteful government spending,” is generic, covering inflation, economy, health, education, crime, welfare, housing, environment, and taxes, so it has been excluded.
- Overall, the issue and statement combinations above represent 71% of the issue weighting that New Zealand voters care about over this September to December 2024 timeframe.
- This covers the top 5 issues = Cost of Living, Economy, Health, Law & Order, Education.
- It also covers issues ranked 7th, 9th, 10th and 11th = Welfare, Environment, Housing, Taxes.
- It does not include two rapidly rising issues = Maori/Treaty in 6th place and Employment in 8th.
- And it doesn’t cover issues outside of this top 11, many of which are generic across multiple portfolio areas = Help families, Parties’ policies, Infrastructure, Social Division, Transport, Immigration, Leaders, Other.
- Respondents are able to rank their top 3 issues. We have weighted this as follows:
- 1st = 3 points
- 2nd = 2 points
- 3rd = 1 point
- Only 20-30 people out of 1,000 each month don’t give at least a top issue.
- If someone doesn’t give a 2nd or 3rd answer, then nothing is counted for that slot for that respondent.
- We then multiply the weighted score of each issue against the % who rated each party best at it.
- This allows us to compare performance scores out of 100% vs political polling scores out of 100% (there are no other parties polling above the 5% threshold or currently likely to win an electorate seat, so we only need to allocate the 100% across the six parties currently in parliament).
- For the graph colours, we chose political party colours based on brand logos and colour palettes from the parties’ websites.
- All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.
Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.
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SOURCES:
Private polling provided to us by the Taxpayers’ Union and Curia.
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