Polling average · 11 Aug 2026 · 21 polls
Only the left can reach 62 — with TOP, whom National has ruled out.
Left 56 · unaligned 7 · right 59 — 62 needed to command the 122-seat Parliament (incl. 2 overhang seats).
The parties — and whose side they're on
Polling average and projected seats for every party in Parliament's race. Coalition lines aren't fixed until the votes are counted — drag the wildcards yourself. TOP starts unaligned and says it's open to any party. Or enter your own party votes and electorate seats — the total seats recompute with the real MMP maths (Sainte-Laguë, the 5%-or-one-seat threshold, and overhang).
Simulations
The chances on election day
Polls will move and polls can be wrong. Ten thousand simulated elections, each drawing a plausible 7 November result around the adjusted polling average — wider the further out we are — and running the full seat maths. Your alignment and electorate settings above feed straight in.
Daily report
Yesterday on the campaign
What moved in the election the previous day — the campaign, the polls, the parties, the money and the process. Compiled each morning by an AI research pass over published NZ reporting; every item links to its sources.
Party vote since the 2023 election
Every published poll (dots) with a recency-weighted average (lines). Parties need 5% of the party vote — or an electorate seat — to enter Parliament.
The polls themselves
Party-vote results from every major New Zealand pollster, newest first. Figures are percentages.
Preferred prime minister
From the most recent poll asking the question.
The money — donations over $20,000
Any donation above $20,000 must be declared to the Electoral Commission within 20 working days; parties also file annual returns covering everything else.
How the seats are worked out
The average
Each pollster's house effect — its systematic lean per party against the consensus of all pollsters over the past 18 months — is estimated and subtracted first. Adjusted polls are then combined with an exponential recency weight (half-life 30 days) scaled by sample size. Newer, larger polls count for more; pollsters that skip a party are left out of that party's average. The table below always shows the published numbers.
The seats
New Zealand uses MMP: the 120 seats are shared out by the Sainte-Laguë formula among parties that clear 5% of the party vote or win an electorate. A party that wins more electorates than its party vote would entitle it to keeps the extras, and Parliament grows — the overhang. The majority line moves with it.
The simulations
The forecast draws 10,000 possible election-day results around the adjusted average. Each party's error grows with its size and with the time left until 7 November, calibrated by replaying this exact method against the 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2023 elections — at this range, history says a major party's polling can miss by five points or more. Electorate seats are sampled too: an assumption switched on holds in 85% of simulations, one switched off still happens in 12%. Every draw runs through the same Sainte-Laguë maths, and the outcomes are counted.
The grand-coalition wildcard
No National–Labour government has ever formed under MMP, so its probability can't be measured from New Zealand data. Instead, each simulated parliament is classified by how cornered the majors are — a bloc governs outright (0.2% chance of a grand coalition), a kingmaker holds the balance (1% plus 0.15% per seat the kingmaker controls), or no aligned majority exists at all (20%, the situation that produced Germany's 2005 and Ireland's 2020 grand coalitions) — weighted by how evenly matched the majors are, and zeroed where they'd lack a majority together. Treat it as a structured hunch, not a measurement.
Electorate assumptions
Sub-5% parties live or die on electorate seats, so the switches under the seat map matter. Defaults reflect the seats each party holds now: Te Pāti Māori's five Māori electorates (down from six after Kapa-Kingi's departure) and ACT's Epsom. The Māori-seats switch is a two-way choice — TPM holds them, or Labour sweeps them — independent of the others. Give TOP or NZ First an electorate seat and the balance can flip.