Salient Election Poll: THE RESULTS

Words by Ethan Rogacion (he/him)

Disclaimer: This poll is NOT in any way statistically accurate, take it with a grain (or perhaps a cup) of salt.

Party Vote

In news just as shocking as the next Prime Minister of Aotearoa being named Chris, voters at Victoria University of Wellington have overwhelmingly indicated their support for a left-wing government this election.

According to results from Salient’s 2023 Election Poll*, 60.3% of students at VUW would give their party vote to the Greens, were an election to be held today. They’re followed by National, who received 13.5% of the vote, then Labour, who sit on 12.2%. Te Pāti Māori scrape into Parliament at 5.2%, just above the 5% threshold for Parliamentary representation. ACT, however, do not make it back in on their party vote numbers alone, only receiving 4.4%.

Translating this into seats in Parliament**, the Greens would receive an outright majority, with 75 MPs in their caucus—an 890% increase from the nine seats that they currently hold. This result is well above the 61 seats needed to form a majority, and means that the Greens would not require any coalition partners.

In the alternate reality where only these specific 226 people cast a vote, New Zealand would be thrust into a constitutional crisis. The Greens only have 31 people on their party list, so there would be 44 empty seats on the government benches. It is unclear how they would make up for this shortfall, but it would probably involve a mousetrap in the middle of Cuba Street rigged up with some edibles or whatever.

Labour and National would shrink significantly, with both parties warming the opposition benches. On these numbers, National receives 17 seats and Labour receives 15. Even if, by some miracle, Chris and Chris do manage to fall in love and form a coalition, these numbers have them significantly short of the amount needed to govern.

Te Pāti Māori gets back in with 7 seats, their biggest ever result. ACT would also be back in with 6 MPs, but only if David Seymour manages to retain Epsom which, given its primarily wine mum and business boy demographic, is certainly a given.

*226 respondents, margin of error = ± huge%. Results were collected between 1-22 September.

**Number of seats in Parliament assuming that all parties currently in the House win at least one electorate seat.

Electorates

Moving to Pōneke’s general electorates, based on these numbers, Salient projects a gigantic Green wave across Te Upoko o Te Ika. According to our poll, the Green Party’s candidates in Wellington Central, Rongotai, and Ōhariu come out on top, each with a healthy lead ahead of their competition. In Te Tai Tonga, Te Pāti Māori’s Tākuta Ferris leads incumbent Rino Tirikatene with a sizeable margin.

Preferred PM

The Green sweep continues in the statistics for preferred Prime Minister. Our poll indicates that most VUW students (30.2%) want to see everybody’s favourite “woke lesbo”, Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick, in the top job. Current Prime Minister and sausage roll enjoyer Chris Hipkins follows her with 20% of respondents giving Chippy their support. Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson comes third on 14%, closely followed by National Party leader Christopher Luxon on 12.3%.


Also registering on our results—albeit marginally—was Salient’s own Paddy Gower with 4.7%. Shout-out to the three people who said that Labour’s Megan Woods was their preferred PM.

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In any case, though, this “poll”—as with all polls—is… just a poll: a snapshot of the country at a particular time. If you want to see real, actual outcomes, the only poll that actually counts is on 14 October, so get out there and vote!