Analysis: Chris Hipkins says Labour is the “underdog” in the election. He may as well have rolled over and bared its belly to defeat.
The latest 1News Verian poll is nothing short of a devastating blow for Labour, with a party vote of just 29%.
The 20s are the political danger zone. National got 25.6% of the party vote in its calamitous 2020 election defeat.
It’s also almost 10 points haemorrhaged in just six months of Hipkins’ leadership - Labour was on 38% in the January poll.
Former National leader Simon Bridges was rolled on 29%.
Cue the Jaws theme song. It’s not a good place to be. Hipkins’ honeymoon is well and truly over.
If 2017's miraculous Labour turnaround is anything to go by, few things are truly impossible in politics. But a scramble out of the 20s for a two-term incumbent party that is already sapped of energy? That's going to be one heck of a slog.
It’s a party knackered from six years of dealing with more than most governments deal with in nine years. March 15, Whakaari, cyclones and floods - and of course, the pandemic.
The latter’s impact cannot be underestimated. On a trip I had to the dentist the other day, chatting to the receptionist, she was convinced Labour was at the end of its third term in government. It took some convincing from me that it had only been two terms.
It feels like three terms, not just to the public, but to Labour too. It’s making an unconvincing show of true hunger for re-election. Granted, Labour is in the unenviable position of continuing to govern while trying to ramp up its election campaign. Hipkins today pointed out the campaign has barely begun.
Barely begun, for Labour. National, in particular, has been campaigning with a steadily increasing amount of vigour since May.
Perhaps not coincidentally, that’s around the time the Nats smelled blood in the water with the first 1News Verian poll this year with the right bloc on top.
It's not like Labour isn't giving it a Kiwi try - but it appears the reaction to its policy to take GST off fruit and vegetables didn't have the impact the party leadership hoped it would. The party will now be scrambling around on all fours, searching under the couch for policy that will soar.
This poll will only serve to inject another confidence boost into National. These things often have a cumulative effect, even when they begin only with the slimmest of margins.
It doesn't seem to matter too much that the public is not particularly enamoured with Christopher Luxon in the preferred prime minister stakes. While a comparative political amateur, he's no disaster. Based on these numbers, a decent chunk of the public thinks: if he's blue, he'll do.
Hipkins said today he acknowledged it had been “a tough three years” for the country. He said Labour was the “underdog”.
Oh my.
The polls since Hipkins swooped in as Labour leader have until now suggested a close race. This is the first that suggests voters’ intentions are sliding more cogently towards a right wing government. It’s not at all over for the left, it’s one poll - and yet, now Labour is the “underdog”. It almost sounds like Hipkins has already conceded.
Today he went on to say he was looking forward to the campaign and that Labour would turn it around and win. Maybe so, but language like that is telling. It suggests Hipkins feels a tide that has already turned, one that needs turning around.
Short of capturing the moon like Maui caught the sun, or somehow getting Taylor Swift to perform in New Zealand, Labour may need a true Hail Mary to stop this slippery slope into political oblivion.
Anything short of that, and come October 15, Hipkins will be packing up the ninth floor with his tail between his legs.
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