The outlook for Labour isn’t quite so bad on iPredict as it was in Sunday night’s polls.
This week’s snapshot from New Zealand’s online predictions market, iPredict, forecasts an election-night gap between National and Labour much narrower than that suggested by the average of this weekend’s TVNZ and TV3 polls. While the average of the TV polls suggests National will win 56.7% of the party vote and Labour 27.8% – a gap of 28.9% – iPredict is forecasting a National party vote of only 50.0%, with Labour winning 28.5%, a gap of just 21.5%. The Greens have built further on last week’s all-time iPredict high, with their forecast party vote reaching 10.7%.
The West Coast Tasman seat however, is worse for Labour:
In electorate contests, Labour’s electorate-only Damien O’Connor now risks leaving Parliament, with his chances in West Coast-Tasman deteriorating to just 45%. . .
. . . For the first time since March, National’s Chris Auchinvole is expected to retain the rugby league loving West Coast-Tasman (55% probability up from 47% last week). This follows media reports of attacks on prominent rugby league supporter Sir Peter Leitch (”The Mad Butcher”) by two Labour MPs.
That sorry episode started in social media where it might only have been seen by political tragics but was soon picked up by mainstream media where it had a much wider audience.
It happened after polling stopped but could have had an impact on the iPredict result.
One snapshot of a prediction market is no more reliable than a single poll and a small number of punts can make significant changes.
But a series of polls in combination with iPredict continue to show a very wide gap between National and Labour.
Homepaddock 