ANALYSIS – Paul K. Gunson
Why Opportunity’s Electoral Composition is Relevant Now
Recent polling has renewed questions about whether Opportunity is approaching electoral viability. Understanding where its support base originates from is therefore becoming increasingly important for coalition arithmetic and election commentary.
Public discussion of Opportunity has largely centred on polling, policy, and opinion commentary. This article instead examines recently acquired New Zealand Election Study (NZES) data from 2017, 2020 and 2023.
While NZES uses a higher survey population than standard political polls, the data should still be considered indicative evidence due to the lower numbers of respondents who were TOP supporters. For this reason, multiple questions with overlapping themes were analysed to offer some degree of evidentiary cross-validation.
Patterns emerged from the data that provide a fascinating insight into the changing composition of the party’s support base.
This will be my first article on Opportunity since publishing The Political Paradox in 2024, in which I claimed there was “no denying TOP’s leftward shift”. When beginning this research I was interested to discover to what degree my 2024 perceptions would align with analytical evidence reviewed in 2026.
PART 1. THE EVOLUTION OF OPPORTUNITY’S SUPPORT BASE
1.1. Where have Opportunity’s votes historically come from?
Respondents who most wanted TOP in government were asked which party they had voted for in the previous election. E.g. Opportunity’s 2017 entry records no support because 2014 was prior to the party’s formation:
The NZES data shows that TOP’s blue-green message was at its most effective in the 2017 election, with support drawn heavily from past National and Green voters. In 2020 the party built a substantial retained-voter base (30%) while still appealing to Labour and National-origin voters. This looks like the broadest mix of supporters.
By 2023 however, TOP was attracting far more former Labour-origin voters than those who voted National in 2020.
1.2. Which Parties Did TOP Supporters Want Governing Alongside Them?
Respondents could select multiple parties, therefore percentages do not sum to 100%:
While Chart 1.1. showed TOP supporters’ composition changing considerably between 2017 and 2023, their preferred governing partners remained remarkably stable. Across all three elections, the Greens were consistently the most popular coalition partner, Labour remained second, and support for National declined gradually over time.
An unusual feature of the data is that fewer than half of TOP supporters explicitly selected TOP when asked which parties they wanted in government. The finding was observed as a trend that showed TOP supporters’ desire to actually be a part of government decreasing over time:
2017: 43.2%, 2020: 36.5%, 2023: 27.8%
This may represent TOP supporters’ preferred parliamentary representation strategy (e.g. sitting across the benches). However, there are many possible interpretations none of which the NZES data can verify, such as misunderstanding the question, a pure protest vote, or something else entirely.
1.3. How TOP Supporters Positioned Themselves Ideologically
The NZES asked respondents to place themselves on a left-right scale: 0 = Left, 10 = Right. Bucketed distributions used for this chart: Left (0-2) Centre-left (3-4), Centre (5), Centre-right (6-7), Right (8-10):
What’s fascinating is that all three charts are telling a coherent story that in different ways points toward a “leftward shift”:
Chart 1.1 (Previous Party Vote) – TOP’s composition shifted from blue-green in 2017 to centre-left dominant by 2023.
Chart 1.2 (Desired Coalition Partners) – National became progressively less desired as a coalition partner.
Chart 1.3 (Ideological Self-Placement) – 2020 appears relatively balanced, but 2023 shifts decisively toward the centre-left.
PART 2. A CLOSER LOOK AT 2023
2.1. Stronger government policies are needed to reduce carbon emissions:
The Greens represent the strongest level of agreement, with the gap between Labour and TOP being relatively small. TOP supporters were also far more likely than National, ACT or NZ First supporters to support stronger carbon-reduction policies.
2.2. Differences in income in New Zealand are too large:
While TOP supporters were less likely than Labour, Green, TPM and NZ First supporters to strongly agree that income differences are too large, three-quarters did agree with the statement overall.
Data from 2017 & 2020 revealed similarly strong support on both questions. This suggests that while TOP supporters may have become more politically aligned with the centre-left over time, the party has always attracted a mix of voters who are conscious of environmental and income-equality issues.
In summary, TOP supporters appear to have their own collective identity, but that identity does not overcome political polarisation. Across these measures, they remain substantially closer to parties of the left than those of the right.
PART 3. INTERPRETING THE EVIDENCE
Although the NZES data is highly indicative of a leftward shift in political composition, it cannot determine why this change occurred.
3.1. Policy
Changes in policy that may be specific to 2023 cannot be considered a definitive causality, because the historical policy-attitude data suggests that supporters’ values around multiple policies were not unique to the party’s 2023 campaign.
3.2. Signalling
Campaign rhetoric has experienced a notable shift since TOP’s inception. In 2017 Morgan’s strongest public criticisms were directed toward the Labour Party. In 2020 Geoff Simmons was more equally critical of Labour and National. In 2023, Raf Manji would maintain his openness to National, but explicitly discussed the party’s progressivism in media.
Interestingly, this year Opportunity has increased its focus on criticising the current National-led coalition government.
This NZES data cannot prove a specific relationship between campaign rhetoric & voter appeal. It does, however, indicate that the 2017 election produced the strongest National-origin appeal observed across the three election cycles examined in this article.
SUMMARY – WHERE THE VOTES ARE COMING FROM
Electoral consequences are ultimately determined by voter behaviour, not by assumptions, branding, or political narratives. The NZES surveys reveal that where a political party declares itself to be on the political spectrum does not always correlate to who it attracts.
Opportunity has consistently presented itself as a blue-green party open to working with either major bloc. The data suggests TOP was strongly blue-green in 2017, remained broadly mixed in 2020, but by 2023 had become much more Labour-Green adjacent across multiple measures.
A party’s effect on coalition outcomes ultimately stems from where its support is drawn from. Regardless of whether Opportunity enters Parliament or not, if the patterns observed in this article continue, its votes are more likely to come from those who would otherwise support Labour or the Greens than from those who would otherwise support parties on the right.
Methodology & Data Sourcing
This analysis uses data from the New Zealand Election Study (NZES) 2017, 2020 and 2023 surveys, accessed through ADA Dataverse. All charts and interpretations are the author’s own analysis of the data.
All datasets were reviewed manually. Artificial intelligence was used as a research assistant to scan for survey variables, review statistical approaches and outputs. All variables, filters, sample sizes, frequency distributions and chart inputs were manually verified against the original survey data before publication.
Dataset citations:
Vowles, Jack, et al. 2017 New Zealand Election Study (V3), ADA Dataverse, DOI: 10.26193/28JJFB
Vowles, Jack, et al. 2020 New Zealand Election Study (V3), ADA Dataverse, DOI: 10.26193/BPAMYJ
Vowles, Jack, et al. 2023 New Zealand Election Study (V1), ADA Dataverse, DOI: 10.26193/HHMEUZ
Copyright Notice
© 2026 Paul K. Gunson. All rights reserved.
Feature artwork adapted from an original image by The Opportunity Party, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cropped and modified by Paul K. Gunson.