2014 Election Study on Leaders

Now we look at the favourability ratings for the party leaders in 2014. Again first those who have a favourable view of each leader.

No surprise that Key had the highest favourability at 60%. But considering this was done after two months of Hager and Dotcom allegations against Key, still a remarkable level.

The 2nd most popular leader is Winston. 30% of NZers like him. Will be interesting to see how that breaks down by which party they voted for.

The two Green leaders were next – Turei on 22% and Norman 20%.  In between then was David Cunliffe on 21%. When only one in five NZers like the alternative Prime Minister, then the outcome may not be a huge surprise.

Flavell does quite well for a minor party with 18% favourability, then Dunne on 13%, Craig 12%, Harawira 10%, Harre 7% and poor Jamie Whyte last on 4%.

This shows how many New Zealanders dislike each leader. The leader with the lowest level of dislike was John Key at 28%. One can have high favourability and unfavourability (think Muldoon), but this shows Key didn’t have a high level of dislike in 2014 – lower than any other leader.

Next lowest was Flavell on 32%, then Turei 37%, Norman 38%, Peters 42%, Whyte 42% and Dunne 46%.

Colin Craig had high unfavourability at 49% but this was less than David Cunliffe at 54%. That is a very high level of unfavourability for the proposed alternative Prime Minister.

The two most unpopular leaders were Laila Harre with 60% dislike and Hone Harawira with 64%,

This graph shows the net favourability for each leader. Key was the only leader whom more voters liked than disliked – at +32%.

The least unpopular was then Peters at -12%, Flavell -13%, Turei -15%, and Norman -18%.

After that Cunliffe was at -32%, Dunne -33%, Craig -37% and Whyte -39%.

Finally Harre on -53% and Harawira on -54%.

A pity they didn’t survey opinion on the true Internet Party Leader, Kim Dotcom – I suspect would be even lower.