On election night, there was only a roughly 60,000 vote difference between the right (National and Act) and left (Labour and Green) blocs in 2023 compared to 2017. Photo / Bevan Conley
National and Act’s combined one-seat majority is likely to slip away after the special votes are counted, based on historic precedent.
National and Act currently hold 61 seats of what is expected to be a 122-seat Parliament - based on the current overhang and the likely result of the Port Waikato byelection.
NZ Herald head of data Chris Knox told On the Campaign that with an estimate of half a million votes to be counted, they will have a big impact on that majority - and how much National would need NZ First to support them in government.
“Typically - well, certainly in the last two elections - those special votes have swung pretty strongly left.
“So in the last two elections, National, once special votes were counted, their seat allocation has dropped by two compared to election night.
“Basically, every MMP election, they’ve lost at least one seat.”
He said that if the same shift between election night and the final vote count that was seen in 2017, National and Act would lose three seats collectively, while they would lose two seats if the 2020 change was applied.
In terms of the swing towards National and Act, Knox said that on election night, there was only a roughly 60,000 vote difference between the right (National and Act) and left (Labour and Green) blocs in 2023 compared to 2017 - suggesting the change in the popular was not that drastic, though the swing appears to have come across more heavily in the electorate seats.
Listen to the full episode of On the Campaign for the full rundown of today’s post-election stories.
On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of On the Tiles will be available from Friday, October 20.
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