Helen White, the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Helen White, the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central. Photo / Brett Phibbs
A new poll has revealed Labour candidate Helen White is miles ahead in the hotly contested fight for the Auckland Central electorate.
The seat is held by popular National Party incumbent Nikki Kaye but she is standing down and The Nation's Reid Research poll shows who is in the race to be her replacement.
With Labour riding high in the party vote, its candidate Helen White was thought to be the frontrunner.
The poll put her at 42.3 per cent, National's Emma Mellow at 26.6 per cent, and the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick at 24.2 per cent.
The poll has a 4.2 per cent margin of error, polled 532 people and was taken in the first and second weeks of September.
White ran in 2017 when she won 40 per cent of the candidate votes - more than the Labour vote of 38 per cent.
National chose a relative unknown, bank PR manager Mellow, following a late, messy selection process which gave National a stumbling start in the contest.
The National Party's Auckland Central electorate candidate Emma Mellow. Photo / Brett Phibbs
With the Greens hovering around the crucial 5 per cent threshold in public polling, an electorate win would be a lifeline for the Greens to stay in Parliament.
In a statement Swarbrick said the poll reflects a three way race and shows that 'every single vote counts'.
"Auckland Central does not belong to a political party. It belongs to the people of Auckland Central" she said.
But White and Labour have ruled out giving Swarbrick the nod to ensure the party makes it back into Parliament.
"Never," White told the Nation.
"I would not. And it's been made very very clear by Jacinda Ardern that it's not on the cards."
Swarbrick said: "We're not looking for a deal, and to be quite frank I think what this shows is that people get to make a decision for the type of candidate that they want."
The poll showed 60 per cent of Labour voters would definitely vote for White, while 15.7 per cent were planning to vote for Swarbrick.
The Green Party's Auckland Central candidate Chloe Swarbrick. Photo / Loading Docs
Support in National for Mellow seemed more loyal, with 77.9 per cent planning to give her their vote.
And 77.1 per cent of Green voters were planning to vote for Swarbrick, and 16.5 per cent for White.
The poll also showed 43.2 per cent of NZ First voters were planning to vote for Jenny Marcroft, who was demoted to 17th on the party's list this week.
Among Act voters, 55.2 per cent were planning to vote for Mellow.
As for the party vote, the Newshub poll showed most Auckland Central Labour voters in 2017 - 77.6 per cent - were also planning to again vote red. Meanwhile, 4.7 per cent were going to vote for National, and 9.6 per cent for the Greens.
Only 68.6 per cent of National voters say they're going to tick blue in 2020 - 15.7 per cent are switching to Labour.
For the Greens, barely half of their voters plan to vote for them again. A quarter had switched allegiance to Labour.
The poll interviewed 532 people via landline, phone and online and on the street. It had a margin of error of 4.2 per cent.
