Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is struggling to connect with voters despite a rush of activity in recent weeks to complete the coalition Government’s first 100-day plan.
A report for corporate clients by pollsters Talbot Mills, sighted by BusinessDesk, shows Luxon dropping three percentage points to 24 per cent as preferred prime minister, just one point ahead of Labour leader Chris Hipkins, on 23 per cent.
Equally worrying for a Government that is seeking to cement a new, more focused narrative on producing an economic “turnaround”, the national mood took a sharply negative turn.
In the poll of more than 1,000 New Zealanders in the first week-and-a-half of March, some 48 per cent of respondents said they now believed the country was on the “wrong track”, compared with 41 per cent who felt that way a month earlier.
The polling in February was the first month in which “right track” positivity was higher than “wrong track” pessimism since mid-2022.
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