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New Zealand election: Luxon and Hipkins separated by about 3,500 votes, no winner yet
With 95% of the preliminary count in, National and Labour are neck and neck and the right-wing bloc has 67 seats in a Parliament that may grow to 130. Special votes over the next three weeks will decide it.
Key points
- With 95% of votes counted, only about 3,500 votes separate National and Labour.
- The right-wing bloc holds 67 seats to the left's 56, in a Parliament that may expand to 130 and needs 66 for a majority.
- Special votes, counted over three weeks, have favoured left-leaning parties before; the final result is due on November 27.
New Zealand’s general election has no winner yet. With 95% of the preliminary vote counted, only about 3,500 votes separate Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s National Party and Chris Hipkins’ Labour, and the final shape of Parliament will not be known until special votes are counted over the next three weeks.
Luxon said National has a path to forming the next government but conceded that “it is too close to call”. Hipkins said voters would need more time to know the result and that “every vote must now be counted”.
A bigger Parliament
Preliminary results suggest the House will expand to 130 seats, the largest in the country’s history, because National and Te Pāti Māori won more electorate seats than their party-vote shares entitle them to. These overhang seats raise the bar for a majority from the usual 61 of 120 to 66 seats.
On the count so far, the right-wing bloc of National, ACT and NZ First holds 67 seats, and the left-wing bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori holds 56. That leaves about seven seats for the centrist Opportunity Party, which is set to enter Parliament for the first time since it was founded in 2017.
The Opportunity question
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said earlier in the evening that “it is looking very likely that after a decade, the Opportunity party is going to make history tonight”, and claimed the party would win seven seats. The party stood at 5.4% on the party vote at 7:42 pm local time, above the 5% threshold.
Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity. Hipkins has said he is open to talking to it but would not support its new tax. If the right bloc keeps its 67 seats it would not need the party, but any slide could make Opportunity the kingmaker.
Why the wait matters
Overseas and other special votes will be counted over the coming weeks. In recent elections they have shifted results towards left-leaning parties, and in 2023 they moved a handful of seats. The official result will be declared on November 27, and coalition talks could run longer. The last two rounds took about four weeks in 2020 and around 40 days in 2023.
The campaign was dominated by the cost of living. Household costs rose 3% in the year to the September 2026 quarter, driven largely by a 19.1% jump in petrol prices linked to the war in Iran. Inflation stood at 3.7% and unemployment at 5.7%, an 11-year high.