National and Labour Poll Ratings July 2004 to July 2010
I thought it might be interesting to step back and look at the party poll ratings over a longer period. The data is from the aggregated Curia poll of polls (thanks to DPF for the raw numbers).
July 15, 2010
Chart of the day, polls and party leadership
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Really makes one appreciate how close the 2005 election was. Based on the polling (which admittedly isn’t a 100% correlation with voting), holding the election a few months earlier or later might have seen a completely different Government.
It’s also interesting to see that National was ahead in the polls, and had been for ~6 months, when Key deposed Brash.
Comment by Jordan — July 15, 2010 @ 9:08 am
Popularity as sine waves. The wax and wane of the national vibe. Nice.
Comment by Will de Cleene — July 15, 2010 @ 9:10 am
My take-away lesson from this is that Goff’s ultra-conservative ‘you can’t change what’s perfect’ approach to leading Labour is/was poliical suicide.
Comment by danylmc — July 15, 2010 @ 9:16 am
“poliical suicide” – like randomly wandering into people’s houses?
Comment by gazzaj — July 15, 2010 @ 9:26 am
Also, this makes me think Labour’s negative campaign against Key during the election worked (something did) – but they were so far behind it didn’t make enough of a difference. Probably why they keep trying.
Comment by danylmc — July 15, 2010 @ 9:59 am
It Might be a good idea to take the data back a few years before 2004 and see how Clark performed against National opposition leaders when Labour were a relatively popular government.
Comment by The Fox — July 15, 2010 @ 10:23 am
It Might be a good idea to take the data back a few years before 2004 and see how Clark performed against National opposition leaders when Labour were a relatively popular government.
She was miles ahead in the leader popularity stakes most of the time – even towards the end she was pretty good, although she ended up being pretty close with Key.
Comment by Stephen — July 15, 2010 @ 10:35 am
On the plus side for Labour, the downward trend in support has ceased and has been stable (or slightly upward) for the better part of a year.
Comment by Phil — July 15, 2010 @ 11:02 am
“the downward trend in support has ceased”
I think that’s because they hit the bedrock of their core supporters…
Comment by nommopilot — July 15, 2010 @ 11:05 am
“On the plus side for Labour, the downward trend in support has ceased and has been stable (or slightly upward) for the better part of a year.”
In other words, it can’t get any worse than it is right now.
Comment by Pat — July 15, 2010 @ 11:07 am
In other words, it can’t get any worse than it is right now.
Well, National did poll 21% in 2002, though this time round it doesn’t appear there are enough strong minor parties to take much of the vote of the party in question.
Comment by Stephen — July 15, 2010 @ 12:04 pm
Well, National did poll 21% in 2002, though this time round it doesn’t appear there are enough strong minor parties to take much of the vote of the party in question.
Labour’s values and policies are also a lot more popular than National’s. So it could be that the rock bottom rate of support for Labour and National is 30% and 20% respectively.
Comment by danylmc — July 15, 2010 @ 12:58 pm
Labour’s values and policies are also a lot more popular than National’s
I don’t believe this is at all true, but more one of the common meme’s of the activist-left.
In 01/02, at the deepest points of National’s unpopularity, there were some really interesting focus group and polling results…
When people were asked to identify with values and policies unprompted, National and Labour implicitly polled close to neck-and-neck. When those values were then asked in association with a party, National lost out badly. I understand it was even the case that when Labour was associated with a traditional National policy or value, they improved their result.
What this suggests, and my own observational bias (we’re still on this bandwagon, right?) at the time backed it up, is that the policy wasn’t the problem: it was the who and how of presentating it.
Comment by Phil — July 15, 2010 @ 1:11 pm
I don’t believe this is at all true, but more one of the common meme’s of the
activist-leftelection 2008.FIFY
Comment by andy (the other one) — July 15, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
So it could be that the rock bottom rate of support for Labour and National is 30% and 20% respectively.
In ’02 National suffered a lot of voter defection to Labour, with the explicit aim (rightly or wrongly) of keeping the Greens out of Government. You can see evidence of that in the vast chasm between the Party and Electorate vote results they got that year.
Comment by Phil — July 15, 2010 @ 1:15 pm
Sorry but why do you think something worked for Labour to close the gap on National slightly come election day? And actually what labour received on polling day was worse than several polls that came a week or two prior to the election.
The gap was always going to tighten. In this case they Labour never closed the gap substantially but there was no way National would remain above 50%. It also explains why towards the latter stages of the election Act’s vote increased as people felt National would win thus enabling some to vote Act. The same happened in 2002 where Clark and Labour consistently polled above 50% but once the election came they fell below 50% with other parties picking up the pieces from National’s collapse in the polls and the likes of United Future and NZ First picking up votes picking up votes from Labour and National.
Comment by gingercrush — July 15, 2010 @ 1:47 pm
[...] Danyl blogs the average poll ratings for National and Labour since 2004 [...]
Pingback by Blog Bits | Kiwiblog — July 15, 2010 @ 4:54 pm
[...] Historically the polls show that Labour lost most of it’s popularity when Clark ran things – not when Goff took over. He’s failed to turn things around, but the fact that Clark left him a party full of senior politicians that the public doesn’t like very much but who refuse to step down can’t have helped much. [...]
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