Bridges in tailspin, maybe not death spiral, as Nats trail

The trouble with political polls these days is that there are so few of them and they have such varied results that they can be used to support almost any narrative.

The one narrative that is common to both public polls — yes, there are only two — is that Jacinda Ardern is in a different stratosphere to Simon Bridges as preferred Prime Minister. His 5 per cent personal support is not pretty compared to Ardern’s 41.8 per cent but it is the party vote that is crucial to Bridges’ future.

The latest Newshub Reid Research poll may cause a murmur in National but is not the sort of result that will throw it into crisis or into a coup mentality. It has fallen below Labour for the first time in 12 years in the Newshub poll, which last surveyed in May last year.

But National falling below Labour is not new in polling. It occurred twice in the past year in the other public poll, TV1’s Colmar Brunton poll, which polled six times last year, although they criss-crossed at the end of the year with National ahead.

National also fell below Labour several times in the two parties’ private polling. That is not to say that Newshub’s poll is wrong or that the TV1 poll with National well ahead of Labour is right. Both Reid Research and Colmar Brunton are credible and experienced pollsters.

There is too much variation in the results to be sure of a trend, although it makes sense that a party led by a popular leader doing a great job for New Zealand in Europe at the time the poll was taken would receive a decent lift. But National polling 41.6 per cent is not crisis territory.

Judith Collins heading Bridges as preferred PM by 1.2 points is not surprising as it has been predicted for the past year.

But National’s party vote polling will have to get a lot worse for a lot longer before the knives are sharpened for Bridges.