I don’t think the Nat’s will be worried – it’s a similar phenomenon to what Brash, English, Shipley, and even Clark, went through as new leaders. I think those of us acutely aware of politics forget just how little interest the rest of the public has in this, and don’t know the personalities involved (outside of the proper campaign period).

but it appears to match exactly. for the preferred PM and Lab

so yes it does appear that a large number of voters do not know Key is the Nats leader
Do you think, if they ever find out, the National party votes % will drop?

It’s because the two questions are asked separately, and the results for one aren’t discarded if you say “don’t know” to the other.

I can think of two reasons why the result might be as it is for pref-PM…
1) Some people intend to vote National, but don’t know who the leader is
2) Those voting for minor parties predominantly prefer Clark to Key

Yes its an interesting observation I wonder if any poll gurus out there
can tell me why the difference ?

It yields a strange result Labour Mirrors HC and National is 8-10% higher then JK
Is this significant ? or did I just cock it up ?

If you have any suggestions of what else you’d like to see analysed from these data, please make some suggestions on the wikipedia page!

As for National, i would say that they have lost some support in the last few months as people became more aware there was a good chance that National would command an outright majority – that suggests to me that people want change, but not at the point that it would give one party outright rule.

While it may not appear so, this is dangerous for Labour, and doubly so after today’s announcement that UF will form a coalition with National. Firstly, it shows that National is more centrist than the Left would have you believe. Rather than turning to ACT, they are positioning themselves to form a coalition of the centre.

Secondly, it allows that support that National has lost over the last month or so to go to UF. Punters can still change the government (which is what the last 12 months of polling has indicated), yet by voting for UF they know that there will be some moderation of that new government.

So, look to see a firming of support for UF (and don’t think the timing of this announcement was a coincidence given the small party leaders debate tomorrow night) – if that occurs then the chances of a Labour led government being formed will drop to almost nil.

The population that the polls is drawing from is increasing coming up towards an election, The composition of the increased population is different from the diehards who were willing to answer a pollster earlier in the year.This is what always happens in the election cycle

Essentially the sample of people willing to answer pollsters between elections are usually people who get concerned about ‘moral outrage’ issues and idiotic ‘scandals’ – ie the talkback/bloggers audience. Beats me how they find time to do that stuff. My bet is that they have a lot of spare time on their hands.

The people who are now willing to answer are people who get more concerned about more fundamental issues, like work, income, costs, bringing up kids etc.

What I think is happening is that we’re seeing the wingnuts getting diluted by people who have little time (ie concentrate on working and family) and don’t share the talkback audiences obsessions. They appear to be viewing the Nay’s with considerable skepticism.

Note that I think that the poll of people unable to be contacted by the pollsters because of the land-line issue are likely to dilute the talkback even further.

If National’s vote is declining, Labour is static, and the Green vote is increasing, then that suggests to me that National votes are bleeding to the centre-end of Labour, and Labour votes at the left-end of Labour are bleeding to the Greens.

I don’t think the graph suggests that National votes are soft. There looks to be a degree of volatility–probably about 10% of the vote, that will shift in opinion between Labour and National.

this may at first sight appear off-topic, but it is not offered as such.

This morning I heard from Brian Schaffner@pollster.com. His team have been following US polls in the potus race, noting quite wide variations. When they began putting them together they spotted a significant difference between folks polled via cellphones and those w/o cellphones.

In the first case(cellphones) the leading candidate consistently showed a 10+ percent lead on his opponent.

In the second case(w/o cellphones) the lead varied between 3-7 percent.

Unavailable unfortunately was a decent-sized sample of both in say equal measure(50/50)..

Lprent’s excellent ‘polling trends’ data above does appear to suggest a softening as the Election approaches to both main parties support. One could take heart from the ‘wisdom of crowds’ – like you guys here – insofar as Labour has displayed a tough core vote and its so-called broad church appeal—which shall also read out as perhaps complementary ‘factions’ under the aegis of MMP.

We might care, however, to inquire as to whether the softening and or polling differences come from cellphone use skew. Or not.

“On competency, Helen Clark was even stronger. She was seen as more competent than the National leader by 53.3 per cent of those polled. Mr Key was well behind on 34.8 per cent.”

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