Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Two political polls out today show the left bloc has the numbers to form a government if an election was held today.
Support for National dropped 3 points to 34 percent in tonight's 1News-Verian poll.
The ACT party had a 1 point bump to 9 percent while New Zealand First dropped one point to 5 percent.
Labour is up 4 points to 33 percent, the Greens are steady on 10 percent and Te Pāti Māori is down 3 points to 4 percent.
On these results, the left bloc would have 61 seats, the minimum level of support required to form a government.
The results also surveyed economic optimisim, finding it dropped 5 points to 36 percent, compared to Verian's December poll.
Economic pessimism rose 3 points to 25 percent.
Of those polled, 39 percent said the government was heading in the right direction and 50 per centsaid the government was going in the wrong direction.
The remaining 11 percent did not know or preferred not to say.
On the preferred prime minister stakes, National's Christopher Luxon dropped 2 points to 22 per cent - his lowest result since taking the top job.
Labour's Chris Hipkins rose 2 points to 17 per cent.
The rest of the leaders were steady with David Seymour and Chlöe Swarbrick on 6 percent, and Winston Peters on 5 percent.
Tonight's 1News Verian poll, taken between 3 and 7 February, surveyed 1000 eligible voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 per cent.
It follows a Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll out this afternoon, which also showed the left bloc is in a position to hold power if an election was held today.
The poll, conducted between 2 and 4 February, had National ever so slightly ahead of Labour - up 2.3 points to 31.9 per cent, while Labour is up 0.4 points to 31.3 percent.
The Greens have done the heavy-lifting getting the centre-bloc into a position to govern for the first time since March 2022, up 3.7 points to 13.2 percent.
ACT and New Zealand First were both down to 10 and 6.4 per cent respectively, while Te Pāti Māori had a slight dip to 4.4 percentage points.
The Curia poll surveyed 1000 adults with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.
Curia is a longstanding polling company but is no longer a member of the Research Association NZ body.
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