Chris Bishop says it is 'highly unlikely' he would win Hutt South on latest polling
Tuesday, 21 July 2026
Senior National MP Chris Bishop says it is “highly unlikely” he would win his Hutt South electorate if current polling is repeated on election day.
Bishop won the seat with a 1300-vote majority at the last election, outperforming the National Party party vote in the electorate by about 4000 votes.
Losing the electorate could easily see the senior minister booted from Parliament altogether, depending on his placement on the list.
Bishop was asked whether he could win if National were at 28.7% of the party vote, as it registered in last week’s RNZ/Reid Research poll, which still estimated that the coalition would win.
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He replied that it would be “very unlikely” and that he was “on the record saying we want it to be higher, and we’re working really hard on that”.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon generally declines to discuss polling, and did so when asked about the poll by RNZ on Monday morning.
National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis said there were a lot of polls but she was confident that her Government was strengthening the economy and creating more opportunities for Kiwis to get ahead.
Asked if she would be comfortable returning to Government with National’s vote share in the 20s, Willis said she wanted National to be stronger than that.
“I want to see New Zealand with a strong National Party leading the government. I want to see a stronger result than that.”
Senior National MP Erica Stanford said the party “had to work harder”.
“I've always said around polls when we are not where we need to be that I'm of course not happy. We have to work harder. We have to be better. We've got to tell New Zealanders about our positive message,” Stanford said.
“From my perspective, I've got to be better at communicating our message.”
She said it was crucial that there was a “strong National voice” in Cabinet and the party would be making that clear in the coming months.
Labour MP Ginny Andersen, who will be attempting to retake the Hutt South seat from Bishop at the election, said the result was not yet determined.
“We're confident that if we keep working hard, we've got a good chance, but that's yet to be determined.“
Andersen won the seat in 2020 as part of Labour’s massive victory that year. Bishop has typically outperformed his party vote substantially.
Boundary changes since the last election are widely perceived as making the electorate more difficult for Bishop to win.
Newly entering the race is NZ First’s candidate Alistair Boyce. He’s well known locally as the co-owner in Wellington’s Backbencher Hotel on Molesworth St.
During last year’s local government elections, Boyce was the spokesperson for Better Wellington, the group behind unsuccessful mayoral candidate Ray Chung’s Independent Together political group.