Risk for Collins of apathy in National ranks
WELLINGTON: The latest poll showing National has failed to make any traction over the past fortnight followed a week in which Judith Collins courted controversy with comments about obesity.
Ms Collins is prone to using some oldfashioned words, and a relevant saying comes to mind: it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
The poll indicates the lady’s pipes are well and truly warmed up, despite Ms Collins’ claim to be ‘‘relentlessly positive’’ that National can still get there.
She has one day for that to happen — and it takes a lot more than a day to close a 15point gap in the polls that has barely budged since the campaign began.
Ms Collins’ biggest challenge now is not to win over undecided voters, but to make those voters who are still with
National actually vote.
If those supporters think the election is a mere formality, the risk is they will not bother voting at all.
With the polls showing Labour so far ahead, apathy may well be a bigger challenge for Ms Collins than it is for Labour leader Jacinda Ardern.
It explains Ms Collins’ focus on her party base over the last week: speaking to meetings made up predominantly of National Party supporters, and urging them again and again to vote.
She has also taken to telling them not to try to vote strategically, an obvious effort to stop the votes she has left floating off to Act New Zealand or New Zealand First.
It is little wonder she is concerned about that.
On the campaign trail with National candidates, it is common for people to say they had voted Act this time round, because of National’s woes.
The best thing National could say about the poll was that there was still a 3 in front of its number — but barely. National was on 31%.
Ms Collins has thrown everything at that mission in the past week, criticising Ms Ardern
and her record and repeatedly hammering at the Greens’ wealth tax and warning of the perils of a LabourGreen government.
Those are messages for National’s faithful, not for swing voters.
On this poll, the LabourGreen option is incredibly likely. The Greens supporters have gone back to shore it up.
That in turn has made Ms
Ardern’s dream of governing alone less likely.
It is there that Winston Peters’ hopes also rest. Like Ms Collins, he has been talking about what a LabourGreen government might mean, especially for the farming sector and economy.
Any wavering National supporters who are unconvinced a vote for National will achieve anything may well be looking at New Zealand First to continue the handbrake role.
Mr Peters has predicted a big lastminute ‘‘surge’’ for his party. It remains unclear whether that surge will be on an outgoing tide rather than incoming.
However, the party’s small bump up to 3% may also be enough to convince some that it will not be a wasted vote. Three percent sounds a lot closer to 5% than 2% did.