2020 New Zealand general election

2020 New Zealand general election

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All 120 seats in the House of Representatives 61 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	2,919,073 (82.24%; 2.49 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Jacinda Ardern Judith Collins James Shaw Marama Davidson Party Labour National Green Leader since 1 August 2017 14 July 2020 30 May 2015 8 April 2018 Leader's seat Mount Albert Papakura List Last election 46 seats 36.89% 56 seats 44.45% 8 seats 6.27% Seats before 46 56 8 Seats won 65 33 10 Seat change 19 23 2 Electorate vote 1,357,501 48.07% 10.19 pp 963,845 34.13% 9.92 pp 162,245 5.74% 1.17 pp Party vote 1,443,545 50.01% 13.12 pp 738,275 25.58% 18.87 pp 226,757 7.86% 1.59 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader David Seymour John Tamihere Debbie Ngarewa-Packer Winston Peters Party ACT Māori Party NZ First Leader since 4 October 2014 15 April 2020 18 July 1993 Leader's seat Epsom Ran in Tāmaki Makaurau (lost)[a] List List (lost) Last election 1 seat 0.50% 0 seats 1.18% 9 seats 7.20% Seats before 1 0 9 Seats won 10 2 0 Seat change 9 2 9 Electorate vote 97,697 3.46% 2.45 pp 60,837 2.15% 0.04 pp 30,209 1.07% 4.38 pp Party vote 219,031 7.59% 7.08 pp 33,630 1.17% 0.01 pp 75,020 2.60% 4.60 pp
Compact results by electorate Results by electorate, shaded by winning margin Results by electorate, shaded by party vote share
Government before election Ardern I Labour-NZF (C&S: Green) Subsequent Government Ardern II Labour (COOP: Green)

The 2020 New Zealand general election was held on Saturday 17 October 2020 to determine the composition of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament.^[2][3] Voters elected 120 members to the House of Representatives, 72 from single-member electorates and 48 from closed party lists. Two referendums, one on the personal use of cannabis and one on euthanasia, were also held on the same day.^[4][5] Official results of the election and referendums were released on 6 November.^[6]

The governing Labour Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, won the election in a landslide victory against the National Party, led by Judith Collins.^[7] Labour won 65 seats, enough for a majority government. It is the first time that a party has won enough seats to govern alone since the mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) system was introduced in 1996.^[8] Labour also achieved the highest percentage of the party vote (50.0%) since MMP was introduced, winning the plurality of party vote in 71 of the 72 electorates (Epsom being the sole exception). This is also the best nationwide result in the popular vote for a main party since 1951, the most seats any party has won since 1990 and the first time Labour has won an absolute majority of the vote since 1946.^[9][10] Ardern subsequently became the most successful New Zealand politician of the MMP era, overtaking John Key by number of seats won under a single premiership. Conversely, this election was the second-worst result for the National Party, which performed poorer only in the 2002 general election.^[11]

With the election being highly centred around the government's praised response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it led to the unprecedented flipping of traditionally National-voting seats to Labour, often with very comfortable margins.^[12] Examples included the rural seats of Wairarapa, East Coast, Ōtaki and Rangitata, the latter having never previously voted for Labour.^[13][14] In another blow to National's heartlands, every city except Auckland and Tauranga gave their seats entirely to Labour. In a surprise victory, the left-wing environmentalist Green Party's Chlöe Swarbrick won the Auckland Central seat vacated by National's retiring Nikki Kaye with a margin of 1,068 votes over Labour's Helen White.^[15] The right-wing libertarian ACT Party and the Greens both increased their number of seats due to the collapse of National's support base. The Māori Party, representing the cause of indigenous rights, re-entered Parliament with two seats after Rawiri Waititi won the Waiariki electorate. Populist nationalist party New Zealand First, led by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in coalition with Labour, suffered its worst-ever result, losing all its seats.^[16][17]

Ardern moved the Labour Party further to the centre during its campaign, promising to cut spending during the remainder of COVID-19 recession and controversially cancelling the government's promise to make the standard three years of tertiary education tuition-free.^[18][19][20] Doing so alienated some left-wing Labour supporters, giving the Green Party a boost in seat numbers and their victory in Auckland Central.^[21] While results of opinion polls early in the year were neck-and-neck between the two major parties, Ardern and the Labour Government were praised for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. Following the Level 4 lockdown in March 2020, polls began to suggest that Labour could either attain a majority government or could govern with confidence-and-supply from the Greens.^[22] In contrast, the leadership of the National Party changed twice in less than three months, unable to improve its poor polling results after collapsing in April 2020.^[23] Heading a campaign widely perceived as centrist or centre-leaning,^[24][25] Labour gained support from a large demographic of moderate swing voters, many of whom had previously voted for National under John Key. Approximately 16% of Labour's voters had voted for National in the previous election.^[26][27]

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