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David Cunliffe
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Fairfax-Ipsos poll
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John Key
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Labour Party
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National Party
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War room
Labour's "War Room" will not be a happy place this morning. And breakfast this morning will be hard to digest as Labour's strategists take in a second disastrous poll result in less than 24 hours.
As if the Roy Morgan poll wasn't bad enough, the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll is out. David Cunliffe described the last Ipsos poll as "rogue", but it isn't; check out the carnage here:
National appears to be tightening its grip on the election, with our latest poll cementing its massive lead.
Today's stuff.co.nz/Ipsos Political poll has National on 54.8 per cent support - a staggering 30-point lead over Labour, but down 1.7 points from our last poll.
John Key is also preferred prime minister among most voters, at 53.7 per cent support to David Cunliffe's 12.8.
Here's what that looks like in graphical form:
And like the Roy Morgan Confidence Rating, those surveyed by Ipsos are optimistic for the future:
Today's poll, which follows Labour's recent election-year congress and a series of targeted announcements on education policy, shows more decided voters, with Labour clearly benefiting from the change.As we noted in our post last night on the Morgan poll, governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them. With similar numbers of people expressing confidence in New Zealand's direction over two polls, there is clearly little mood for change.
But 15.3 per cent of voters still don't know who they will vote for.
That will bring little cheer to Labour, however, as it prepares for its election campaign launch, now just weeks away.
Booming confidence in the economy appears to be buoying National's support, with 64 per cent of those surveyed believing the country was on the right track, the highest in our survey since 2012. Satisfaction with the Government's performance has also held up, suggesting Labour is running out of time to articulate a convincing argument for change.
We used to joke about Labour's number at the next poll having a 2 in front of it. Now Labour seems to be embedded in the mid-to-low-20's, and even though there has been a very minor correction in this poll compared to the last Fairfax-Ipsos poll, this poll will be a huge dent to Labour's optimism.
The faces in the War Room will be grim. It's hard to remain positive under the pressure of these kinds of numbers, and at least one high-profile Labour staffer was engaging in abusive social media comment last night; a sure sign of pressure. Labour has not only run out of rabbits to pull from hats; it's run out of hats as well!
Conversely John Key will return from his Hawaiian holiday tanned, rested and refreshed, and ready to hit the campaign trail. The 50th Parliament has just two weeks to go, and the election is just over nine weeks away.
The clock is ticking, but for Labour and David Cunliffe, it must sound like a time bomb ticking down. They'll be hunkering down in the War Room today.
