More bombshells – now it’s game on

Has there ever been an election campaign like it? The bombshells keep coming, the shell-shocked Greens the latest to lose a leader.

Metiria Turei, just 24 hours after defiantly refusing to relinquish her role as Green Party co-leader, has fallen on her sword. And a new poll confirms what everyone suspected – the political landscape has been transformed by the Jacinda affect.

The Greens have at least got some clear air now to salvage what they can. But they will have their work cut out erasing Turei’s image as she announced her decision to quit – defiant and still playing the martyrs card to the end.

The Newshub poll was a final kick in the guts for the Greens – their vote shredded to single digits. But for Labour, it was a massive vindication of the change of leader.

Jacinda Ardern has taken them to 33.1 per cent in the poll, up nine points. National was on 44.4 per cent support, down one. NZ First was on 9.2 per cent, down almost four points.

But those won’t be the numbers worrying National.

Ardern shot to 26.3 per cent as preferred PM on the poll, just behind Bill English at 27.7 per cent. In 2008, once John Key started outpolling Helen Clark as preferred PM, it was all over.

Parliament still has just over a week to sit before rising for the election campaign. The past few weeks have been turbulent, shocking, and tumultuous. The Beehive and surrounding precincts feel like they are in a permanent state of high alert.

These new poll numbers will lend an even sharper edge to the final countdown.

National won’t be panicking yet. On the numbers Ardern has only robbed Peter to pay Paul – Labour is up at the expense of the Greens, and NZ First.

But National has enough poll obsessives in its ranks to know that the trend is your friend.

And after nearly a decade under John Key it also knows what a rock star leader looks like. Which is why they know it is game on.