2029 and overhang

I don’t think people have fully realised how much the 2026 election results will impact 2029, in terms of overhang.

As readers will know I actively opposed the overhang strategy where people advocated National supporters do note vote National to deliberately create overhang seats. I wrote against it here several times. I did around 40 – 50 public speaking engagements where I had questions on it, and warned against it. I went on Reality Check Radio (who campaigned for it) to make the case against it.

But let’s look at the arguments I made against overhang, and how they now stack up.

1. This would mean National has no List MPs at all, and you lose Willis, Bishop etc. Well this has already happened now, so is not an argument for 2029.
2. A public backlash against a government formed by deliberate overhang strategy. Well I think this still holds true, but National did not advocate for people not to give them their party vote, and presumably never will. National will always seek the party vote. But unlike 2026 when most of its supporters listed to National and did not tactically swap party votes – this will not be the case in 2029 as now overhang is a reality, not a mathematical possibility
3. It creates an arms race, where all parties will then try to manipulate the system. Yep, but TPM started it, and even if it does National would win any such arms race as it generally does better in electorates due to the existence of the Māori seats accumulating left wing voters in seven seats, rather than in say 20 marginal seats.
4. It weakens National as it can’t attract future star candidates through the list. Well this has already happened. Anyone who thinks they will be a National List MP in 2029 should go by a lotto ticket. Unless National can have a huge 6%+ increase in its party vote support, there are no List MPs in its immediate future.
5. It treats National, NZ First and ACT as interchangeable parties. Well they are not. But overhang has now happened and the reality is National now has a ceiling of 42 MPs. So with no path to get more National MPs through the list, then it doesn’t hurt National to have NZ First and ACT get more List MPs.

The two critical changes from 2026 to 2029 are National no longer has List MPs to try and retain, and overhang is not a theoretical possibility, but a reality. This will inevitably mean that in 2029, National supporters will be far far more likely to vote tactically with their party vote. National I am sure will still campaign for the party vote, but supporters will work out what makes sense, and won’t need an advertising campaign to convince them.

The only way this won’t happen is if National is polling up around 35%, or unless there is some reason to think National could lose a huge number of electorates.

In 2029 one could well see NZF and ACT both get say 15% of the vote. This is because there is a world of difference between a theoretical overhang based on assumptions around electorate victories, and an actual overhang where National already has seven overhang seats. This would give them an extra 12 seats, and so long as National held onto at least 32 of 42 electorates, they would almost be guaranteed re-election. I am not advocating this – I am just stating the the overhang result in 2026 change the 2029 landscape massively.

I support changing the law to remove overhang seats, but this is far from likely. Especially as solutions being put forward by many on the left would only remove overhang seats for National, but not for Te Pati Maori. If the left don’t want to be locked out of power for a generation, due to overhang, they need to seriously engage about genuine MMP reform, not pseudo reform that doesn’t deal with the TPM overhang (which they seem to all be ignoring).