The latest RNZ-Reid Research poll paints a picture of widespread disenchantment. Photo: RNZ
Analysis - It speaks to a certain bleakness when a poll can be described as "mid-term, mid-winter, middle-of-the-road" - in the middle of September.
ACT's David Seymour may have forgotten that New Zealand is already in spring, but his slip captures the damp political climate: winter, it seems, is refusing to end.
The disenchantment turns up in nearly every aspect of the latest RNZ-Reid Research poll.
Both Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins have sunk to their lowest levels yet in their net performance ratings. Negative 15 on one side, and a lowly three on the other.
Luxon's results are particularly bad across the board: not even 20 percent name him as their preferred prime minister, despite him holding the job.
And yet only about a quarter of voters think National or Labour would improve their chances under someone new.
Asked to recommend a replacement, those voters floated the usual names: Erica Stanford, Nicola Willis or Chris Bishop on the right; Kieran McAnulty or Carmel Sepuloni on the left.
But on both sides, the most common answer by far was: "don't know". Most respondents couldn't proffer a single suggestion.
It paints a picture of widespread dissatisfaction, not just with the incumbents but with the alternatives too.
The pessimism is also evident in the headline figures.
Almost half of voters (48.9 percent) think the country is headed in the wrong direction, worse than in May (46.6 percent) and in March (40.6 percent).
They spread the blame across both sides of politics: 38 percent point the finger at the current coalition, 31 percent at Labour, and 24 percent at both sides equally.
For now, that stasis seems to be holding the competing blocs roughly in balance, producing a knife-edge contest - a 60-60 split in this poll.
It is not unlike 1993: an unpopular first-term National PM Jim Bolger facing off against a former Labour PM Mike Moore, better liked but freshly ejected.
The result was a cliffhanger election in which National narrowly clung to power, helped heavily by the first-past-the-post system.
Bolger went on to win again in 1996 but was rolled by Jenny Shipley a year later.
National MPs remember well how that ultimately played out: a dramatic falling-out with Winston Peters and then defeat in 1999.
That experience - as well as the voter scepticism - should temper any talk, for now, of rolling the prime minister.
National's gameplan then is to keep its focus on the cost-of-living and to hope falling interest rates deliver mortgage relief before too late next year.
Unlike in 1993, it cannot rely on the bluntness of first-past-the-post to save it.
Instead, National will again need Winston Peters and David Seymour, currently engaged in a tussle to be the dominant coalition partner.
NZ First is ahead of ACT in this poll, as it has been in others this year, and the two are now scrapping openly over credit for various populist policies.
For its part, Labour can see an emerging path back to power, but it has yet to unveil a clear policy platform.
The opposition party is soon to reveal its tax plan, a proposition which has tripped it up spectacularly before.
As well, Te Pāti Māori is proving a headache for the left.
Fresh off its Tāmaki Makaurau by-election win, the party should be riding high.
Instead, it has taken a hit, embroiled in the messy fallout from MP Tākuta Ferris' social media posts.
That row has continued into this week, forcing Hipkins to warn that Te Pāti Māori's handling of the matter would "have a bearing on Labour's ongoing working relationship with them".
No sign of a break in the political weather for anyone just yet.
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