Gender split is interesting in latest poll

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, October 7th, 2021 - 30 comments
Categories: act, covid-19, gender, health, maori party, national, political parties, Politics, polls, same old national, Social issues - Tags: ,

The latest Roy Morgan poll was run between August 30th and September 26th. The headline results of Labour/Greens with 55% (increase by 3.5%) against opposition National/Act/Maori parties on 41% (up 0.5%) were good enough. But they also showed the gender split. That shows that women deserting the right.

I was surprised that the Maori Party was lumped in with the right. Sure they were in the Key/English governments. But when you look at the gender split, it becomes clearer.

Party vote analysis by Gender

TotalMenWomen
%%%
Labour45.537.554
Greens9.58.510.5
Labour/Greens554664.5
National2325.521
Act NZ1622.59.5
Maori Party22.51
National/Act NZ/ Maori Party4150.531.5
Others43.54
Total100100100
Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating*
Right Direction5754.559
Wrong Direction3237.526.5
Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating*125117132.5
Can’t say11814.5
Total100100100

The National party has a minor 20% lean towards male voters. However Act has 130% misogyny lean towards males – and it is similar for the Maori Party (on small numbers).

To me it is striking that just how strong the voting imbalance is becoming. Lab/Green has a positive about 40% lean of support from women compared to men, and the Nat/Act/MP has a 60% negative lean away by women voters.

I’m sure that the debate here will come up with speculation about why. But personally I suspect the overwhelming stream of bibulous negativity and scapegoating from National and Act and its inability to do anything to do any positive actions apart squabble amongst themselves is the main off-putting factors.

I haven’t dug back through the previous recent Roy Morgan findings too far to look for previous gender related information – because I think that it is only recently that they have been reporting it. August 2021, July 2021 … Feel free to link to them for other readers.

But the few that I scanned through lead me to speculate that the right parties are getting more support from men in recent months, but not attracting women. And that the misogynist support is increasingly concentrating into Act.

However none of it a year after the last election, tends to indicate any real trend towards National being able to put together a winning coalition in the future. It must be worrying. To me they certainly look less competent now than they did at the last election – and they were a shambles then.

Things like the tone-deaf and downright stupid sabotage Simeon Brown (and Judith Collins) tried to perform to the vaccination drive earlier this week – see “Right now Sonny Fatupaito is an essential worker”.

Viruses simply don’t care about who people are, or how sanctimonious dimwits would prefer to scapegoat people for electoral purposes. Viruses only want to find hosts to infect and breed in. Having unvaccinated marginalised pocket populations acting as infection pools is a perfect way to keep a endemic disease spreading out in a epidemic to the whole population – vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.

This would be obvious to anyone who has seen the spread of diseases through populations, and certainly to any mother who has dealt with children colds and sniffles from the education system. You don’t deal with diseases by scapegoating. You deal with infectious diseases with collective actions that constrain their spread.

In my opinion the right simply isn’t competent at collective actions. They prefer scapegoating and trying to ignore problems. The latter is why rapidly increasing our population over most of the last decade while steadily cutting public service delivery per head of population, like our medical system. Paying for tax cuts like that John Key penny-pinching has left us in a precarious position when a pandemic arrives.

It takes a equally long time build them up again to the point where they could cope. While equipment can be brought and installed reasonably rapidly, training people takes years and years. So vaccines, masks, and border controls will be the way forward for the foreseeable future in NZ. Perhaps National and Act should focus on something constructive – like how to make that happen?

30 comments on “Gender split is interesting in latest poll ”

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  1. observer 1
    7 October 2021 at 11:13 am

    The earlier Curia poll was even worse … perhaps the worst result for a major party in NZ polling history. Total rejection of National by women under 40:

    https://twitter.com/nealejones/status/1438595903569334287

    • lprent 1.1
      7 October 2021 at 11:38 am

      Yeah – I'd have liked to have actually have seen that level of detail on that Curia poll.

      However I do prefer to not rely on hearsay and more on public polls that are actually published and not leaked. I always have to consider the source and their motivations for selective leaking.

      I especially prefer poll series over time to iron out temporary blips.

      I find it interesting that Roy Morgan has started regularly publishing a gender breakdown. The gender split that has been evident in published polls now appears to be becoming even more stark. It obviously must be a strong enough trend for RM to start drawing attention to it.

  2. Tricledrown 2
    7 October 2021 at 11:47 am

    Collins bullying is a turnoff for new generations as they have been brought up in an environment where bullying is not acceptable.

    • Gezza 2.1
      7 October 2021 at 12:02 pm

      I have been thinking the same thing for some time.

      My own informal surveys (chats about politics & party leaders with anybody interested) have been telling me for some time that most females prefer the collegiate, warm, humane style of Ardern to the negative, cold, sometimes rather ruthless, style of Collins – and perhaps of Seymour.

  3. Gezza 3
    7 October 2021 at 11:57 am

    From the post: “But the few that I scanned through lead me to speculate that the right parties are getting more support from men in recent months, but not attracting women. And that the misogynist support is increasingly concentrating into Act.”
    ………………………..

    It probably thus follows that the misandrist support is leaning strongly to Labour & the Greens?

    • Nic the NZer 3.1
      7 October 2021 at 12:49 pm

      If you look at the splits the interesting one is Labour. National has a small gender split, act has a large one with the bigest gender split ratio, but labour has the largest split of all (also assuming a roughly 50/50 poll sample).

      You also can't identify a trend from one sample and if there was a shift you would need to see the gender breakdown either side. I expect ACT has had massively more male support since forever and its possible this has barely changed or even improved balance as their support have come across.

    • lprent 3.2
      7 October 2021 at 1:02 pm

      Sure but in far more balanced proportions for the Greens than Labour.

      But what got me was looking at Act support of 16% in this poll where the split was men at 2.5% and women at 9.5%.

      Possibly that could simply be that they don't have any women speaking in public as far as I can tell. Or it could simply be that that the only person speaking for Act appears to be the male member for Epsom.

      Just at present Act could easily be portrayed as some kind of political cult with a messianic leader speaking for a reasonable sized group of incels and a very few (possibly subservient) women.

      Of course that they don't have people speaking for them could simply be because most of their members and especially their candidates and MPs often sound like raving nutbars when you do see their rare public utterances.

      • Forget now 3.2.1
        8 October 2021 at 9:07 am

        Typo – 22.5%, not 2.5% for ACT men there; lprent (seemed off, so had to scroll back to check & wanted to save others the time).

        My own take is that men are more likely to cut and run, while women have more loyalty. The ACT surge seems to be directly proportional to the NAT slump, so is largely made up of those willing to shed previous political allegiance and seek shelter under a new banner. Without the basis for comparison of the ACT gender split when National is riding high in the polls (which I suspect will be more balanced), any conclusions have to be tentative.

        As for polls in general, I agree that leaked UMR & Curia are being put into the public domain to serve someone's agenda – so are very suss. I like the monthly sampling frequency of RM, it makes graphing so much easier! CB's trick of irregular sampling plotted regularly on an X(time)-axis is just statistical deception as far as I am concerned.

  4. dottie 4
    7 October 2021 at 12:02 pm

    Reasons, I think that you got it right when you put ” a stream of negativity” at the

    the top of your list, I would add inconsistency ,to the list.

    I like to think that women are more sensitive to the importance of collective actions .

    in dealing with issues.

  5. Ad 5
    7 October 2021 at 12:17 pm

    Averages age of males remaining in the Labour Party is about 50 and climbing. Putting up hoardings looks like the Thriller video.

    • Nic the NZer 5.1
      7 October 2021 at 1:03 pm

      Your just trialing Nationals election replacement for the prior Canoe? Don't vote for the zombies. The theme tune, ripping off Michael Jacksons estate, priceless (lawyers will put the eventual case).

      • Ad 5.1.1
        7 October 2021 at 1:36 pm

        Such Labour men will just die off and billboards simply removed as generally a useless spend.

        Structural adjustments to both central and local government have siphoned out the fluids of our politics into a living husk. There's so much less to contest. Males of my generation have slunk off to other nodes of power.

  6. gsays 6
    7 October 2021 at 12:19 pm

    Those gender results would run against the vibe from women in relation to the BDMR Bill.

    • francesca 6.1
      7 October 2021 at 12:28 pm

      The vast majority of women have no notion of the BDMR bill,and the pitfalls of self ID without safeguards.

      I venture that most women are very invested in the covid response and up until now at least, trust the govt far more than it's critics

      • Visubversa 6.1.1
        7 October 2021 at 12:51 pm

        And many of those who do know about the Bill have been Labour/Green loyalists all their lives and are not about to vote any other way. They may not work for the Party, or give it $$$$, but they have a wider view and see the NACT coalition as much more of a danger.

      • gsays 6.1.2
        7 October 2021 at 2:01 pm

        I have to agree with your first point.

        Since this issue came up, I have been asking women I know about what they think of the BDMR Bill, gender self-ID, safe spaces and redefinition of 'woman'.

        It is surprising that virtually none have heard of the bill. There hasn't been a passioned response to the other three issues. A lot of women I have asked have been nurses, FWIW.

        I reckon I have articulated the arguments reasonably.

        • Forget now 6.1.2.1
          8 October 2021 at 11:19 am

          Most cis women I have asked about the BDMRR SOP59 simply couldn't give a damn one way or another. If anything, those who have an opinion lean towards supporting it (so long as they don't have to make any effort themselves). Though the population sample is obviously biased by the fact they are the kind of women who are willing to talk to a takatāpui in the first place.

          The only exception I can think of is an old Kuia who believes that Māori were one of the 12 "lost" tribes of Israel, and that Rātana spoke with the literal voice of Te Wairua Tapu. She was most upset when I mistook her Whetū Mārama for any kind of rainbow community symbol. Aue!

  7. Gypsy 7
    7 October 2021 at 12:29 pm

    The 'Collins factor' is huge in this. She simply doesn't resonate with women. It's not a new issue for her, and it won't change.

  8. Foreign waka 8
    7 October 2021 at 1:41 pm

    Since we haven't seen much other than Covid and lock downs in the last couple of years, it stands to reason that any poll would reflect that. But more and more the stories about children benefits being held back and a two tier system in social housing, gangs basically have now more say where society is to focus on, policing and law at a very weak point, i.e. slap on the wrist for stealing an elderly persons money (morally, ethically bankrupt). Unions not wanting teachers back in the class room (how about vaccination?) at the disadvantage to the kids, another generation of welfare dependency in the making? Small businesses going to the wall, no one talks about high food prices anymore etc etc etc.. Once reality sets in, perhaps when the mountain of debt has to be repaid and inflation goes sky high, the focus will shift back to how as a society that includes everybody are we going to make it. But never mind, time will tell.

  9. georgecom 9
    7 October 2021 at 1:50 pm

    I had the realisation this morning that earlier in the week the National Party had it's "covid reopening plan" tea party, where national mps dressed up like adults and pretended they were the government. Now it's time for the adults to do the real work

  10. bwaghorn 10
    7 October 2021 at 5:15 pm

    Wondering if acts strong male support is due to the fact seymour isnt a woman and that's all there is to acts rise of late.

  11. Delia 11
    7 October 2021 at 6:20 pm

    Really, well I think the Left abandoned women along time ago.

  12. Tabletennis 12
    8 October 2021 at 7:36 pm

    any figures on TOP?

  13. Kevin Warburton 13
    8 October 2021 at 7:58 pm

    Cold easily argue too that men are abandoning/deserting Labour with it having biggest gender split with women dominating.

  14. GreenBus 14
    9 October 2021 at 9:05 am

    As an oldish pale stale male I can confidently say the classic kiwi joker is still around in big numbers in the working sector anyway. Fairly thick, slightly arrogant and pretty macho, staunchly independant, real wise crackers. Classic National Party supporters. National are a mess, unworthy of voting for. Kiwi Jokers rubbish Labour so have gone to ACT. No where else to go, and they hate the Greens.