New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern’s Ratings Sky High Ahead Of Election
Published
Ahead of New Zealand’s election, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s ratings are at a record high, indicating another victory for the acclaimed political leader.
The Labour Party head has been constantly praised throughout the pandemic for her actions-over-sentiment attitude, helping to put firm testing infrastructure in place, hard lockdown measures and the ‘strictest regulations’ around quarantining travellers.
Since the first COVID-19 death outside China on February 2, New Zealand has only endured 1,556 confirmed cases and 22 deaths. Such startling numbers will play a crucial role in this year’s election, it seems.
According to the results of a Newshub-Reid Research poll on Sunday, July 26 – the same day as Ardern’s 40th birthday – the popularity of the Labour Party soared to 60.9%, an increase from 56.5% in the previous poll.
These are the party’s highest results in the poll’s history, and if they come to fruition on election day on September 19, the Labour Party could govern without the need for a coalition, such as the one they’re in currently with the Greens and nationalist New Zealand First party.
Ardern told Radio NZ that while her party’s own polling has shown ‘a reasonably significant gap between [Labour] and the opposition’, she’s never ‘complacent… I’m equally sceptical about the [polls] that are high as the ones that are low’.
The PM added:
When it comes to the trends, we’ve seen a strong indication of support for what I would say is most likely to be the government’s response to COVID-19 and the recovery plan. We have seen high support for the government… but these are pretty extraordinary times. We’ll be working very, very hard to earn the trust of New Zealanders.
Ardern’s individual ratings also place her in the lead, with the country’s preferred prime minister ratings placing her at 62%, up 2.5% since the previous poll. The same cannot be said for the opposition National Party, with support dropping to 25.1% and its leader Judith Collins currently sitting at 14.6%.
Collins became the leader of the party less than two weeks ago, following Todd Mueller’s resignation after less than two months in the role. ‘I think we’ve done very, very well when you consider what we’ve dealt with in a week and a half,’ she said, The Guardian reports.
Deputy leader Gerry Brownlee balked at the poll results, claiming that they ‘aren’t even in the same ballpark as our internal polls, other public polls and the hugely positive public response to our Leader Judith Collins… one in 20 polls will always be a rogue and this is clearly one of them’.
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Topics: News, Election, Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand, Now, Politics, World News
