Labour ahead in new poll

The Labour Party has had a rapid rise in the polls but at the expense of its coalition and supply and confidence partners.

The 1News/Colmar Brunton poll last night had Labour at 48 per cent, up 9 percentage points on the previous 1News poll in December while National fell 3 points to 43 per cent.

Labour’s new heights are the best result the party has had in 15 years of Colmar Brunton polling.

But Labour has picked up popularity from its coalition partner NZ First, which dropped 2 percentage points to 3 per cent and supply and confidence partner, the Greens, which also dropped 2 points to 5 per cent.

Both the Ma¯ ori Party and The Opportunities Party – neither of which are in Parliament – registered 1 per cent in the poll.

Colmar Brunton was out in the field polling between February 10 and 14 – National Party leader Bill English announced he was stepping down on February 13.

In the preferred prime minister polling, Jacinda Ardern was up four points to 41 per cent and English dropped 8 percentage points to 20.

NZ First leader Winston Peters reached 4 per cent.

In Parliament, the numbers would give Labour and the Greens a total of 65 seats while National, with one extra seat from ACT leader David Seymour, would hold 55 seats.

The numbers are likely to give Ardern and her team some confidence after the last poll in January, which was done by Newshub/ Reid Research, still had National ahead of Labour.

The poll of about 1000 voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent.