One week before New Zealand’s polling day, what’s the situation?

Opinion polls, no matter how well conducted, can create false expectations. There is always a margin of error, they can’t capture late-deciders or switchers, and they can be foiled by poor turnout.

It’s looking at least like turnout will be good for this election. Advance voting is strong, while good weather and daylight saving will make a marginal difference for busy people. Registrations of younger people are higher than in 2017.

And it does look like the recent volatility in the polling (which boosted Labour up to unrealistic highs) has settled into something more or less stable.

I’m assuming that this election is the end of the road for NZ First, as they have no chance of winning Northland now. Their previous support-base has split left to Labour and right to National, ACT and New Conservatives.

The Māori Party could squeak back in with one of the Māori seats, but that would not make a decisive difference to the overall outcome in government-formation.

Now, let’s assume that the next parliament consists of four parties (ACT, National, Labour, Green). Moving then from right to left, what’s the situation looking like?

We can predict that ACT’s leader David Seymour will win the Epsom seat, but they may not need that anyway. Polling lately at 8% in the party vote, they could win 10 seats.

National is looking, on a good day, to have about 32%. That’s enough to net 41 seats. But 51 seats (National plus ACT) are not enough for a centre-right majority.

Labour has dropped to 47% in the polls, and a party vote at that level would give them 61 seats. A bare majority.

If the Greens got back in with 6%, that would give them 8 seats. So, if Labour fell short of the majority indicated above, they would still be able to govern with the Greens. A Labour-Green coalition government is a strong possibility.

But, let’s suppose that the Greens’ candidate loses in Auckland Central and the party goes below the 5% threshold, and we add one percent to Labour (assuming that’s where most of the missing Green voters went.) Under those circumstances, with three parties in parliament, then Labour would have a majority of 65 seats.

On election night, before special votes are counted, there could be uncertainty about the full outcome, especially if Labour and Green party-vote percentages are lower than predicted above. Special votes tend to swing things to the left slightly, by one or two seats. Either way, though, it looks like Labour will be returned to office. National and ACT combined (at 40% or a little more) do not add up to anywhere near Labour’s polling in mid to high forties. If the Māori Party wins a seat, that could produce an over-hang (a 121-seat parliament), but they would not oppose Labour staying in government.

It looks like Jacinda Ardern will get another term as prime minister.