Polls will be vital for at least a third of voters

Academic observers of coverage of elections, myself included, are prone to decrying the mainstream media’s obsession with opinion polls during the campaign – the so-called ‘‘horse race’’. But this election is different. More voters than ever will be relying on the polls to help them vote tactically.

If the latest results are correct, the two major parties are pretty much neck and neck.

One minor party, New Zealand First, could decide which of those two leads the next government. The other, the Greens, is staring at electoral oblivion.

All the other minnows are also in danger of disappearing, with the exception of Act, which will probably cling on to its rotten borough single seat of Epsom.

So the polls are crucial for helping floating voters, and that’s probably at least a third of the electorate, decide where to put their tick.

For the 5 per cent who’ve deserted the Greens (mostly to Labour, it’s safe to assume), pushing them down to the edge of the 5 per cent threshold, do they swing back to keep James Shaw and his fellow tree huggers in Parliament?

Where do the 4 per cent who voted Conservative last time go? Probably to National or New Zealand First, rather than to a Labour Party whose leader is firmly in favour of medical marijuana, or to ACT, which is pushing to legalise euthanasia.

But New Zealand First is on the wane – down to 8 per cent in the latest poll. With three weeks of the campaign to go, there’s plenty of time for that to go down further. If Winston Peters can’t hang on to Northland, he may need that recentlyreduced pension. Unlikely, but possible.

So every vote counts for all parties, large and small, more than ever. Even more so when 10 per cent or more voters could back parties that don’t get into Parliament. The horse race could end in the knackers yard for more than a few incumbents.

And that could mean Labour or National governing alone with not much more than 40 per cent of the vote.

Unlikely, but possible.

Mark Boyd lectures in politics and international relations at Auckland University