Vote 2020: Labor crushes National in polls, but Google data suggests the race is not over yet

Google has launched a new electoral trend center, figuring out how New Zealanders search for parties, leaders and important issues before October 17.

It’s been six long and tough weeks since Newshub’s “rogue” poll that gave Labor hope of ruling alone after the October elections.

Since then, we’ve had a second wave of new Covid-19 cases, a second lockdown, and a plethora of tantalizing electoral policies.

To help us through to a new vote, Google’s electoral trends portal lays out what New Zealanders are looking for in the run-up to next month’s elections.

Here are five key points:

People seek national much more than work

Despite the most recent poll showing Labor leagues ahead of the opposition, Google searches for the National Party over the past week nearly doubled those for Labor.

Of the searches for New Zealand political parties represented in our most recent parliament, 32% were for National, 20% for Act, 17% for Labor and New Zealand First, and 14% for Greens.

The internal poll leaked by UMR (which also polls for Labor) this week looks nothing like these Google trends. That poll has Labor at 52 percent, with the national at 29 percent and the Greens outside of parliament at just 3.2 percent.

Jacinda Ardern is still on top of Judith Collins

Despite the high number of National Party searches, Google data shows that Jacinda Ardern consistently tops the list of most wanted political leaders. Over the past week, 54 percent of searches for political party leaders in New Zealand have been for Ardern, compared to just 19 percent for Judith Collins.

Possibly fueled by his time in the news defending and later apologizing for the Green School funding mix-up, James Shaw is matching David Seymour at 5 percent, while Marama Davidson is just 1 percent.

The data also shows that the Bay of Plenty is the region with the highest searches for Ardern. It’s unlikely to be a coincidence: Ardern has been campaigning in the area, making announcements in both Tauranga and Whakatāne.

It really is Covid’s choice

Jacinda Ardern previously said that this election would be dominated by Covid-19, and Google trends seem to support that claim.

The “coronavirus” has consistently been the most sought-after political topic for the past week, surpassed briefly by “taxes” yesterday, the same day Labor released its policy.

Aside from Covid-19, the most common topics have been taxes and education.

Google also differentiates between political “issues” and political “issues,” the latter of which are more specific terms. The biggest trending topic in the elections in recent days has been “jobs,” likely due to the renewed risk of business closures due to Covid-19. Good news for the National Party is that the “roads” are number two, followed by taxes, cannabis, lockdown, and the wage subsidy.

While cannabis is in the top five searches, the other referendum issue, euthanasia, ranks at number 11, alongside climate change at 10.

Greens go too hard on Google advertising

Since May 18, a small push of more than $ 87,000 has been spent on political ads on Google, of which more than half were from two parties. The Greens spent $ 33,000 on political ads during this time, and the Act spent just under $ 24,000. Labor is nowhere to be seen on the list, and National spent just $ 600 on a Google ad.

Sustainable New Zealand, the party led by Vernon Tava that has been almost completely absent from any election discussion, has spent $ 6000.

The rest of the money is mainly split between ad campaigns for the cannabis and euthanasia referendums, with the Drug Foundation spending more than $ 13,000 and Yes for Compassion handing out $ 7,800.

That Winston Peters Q&A interview could have done a good thing

By now, almost everyone seems to know about the interview Winston Peters gave over the weekend on TVNZ’s Q&A. While on the one hand it may have made Peters seem forgetful and downright angry, Google trends seem to support the old mantra that any exposure is good exposure.

Searches for Winston Peters spiked Sunday morning, shortly after the interview aired.

Google trends also show that nearly all of the Winston Peters searches were matched with Q&A or Jack Tame related searches.

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson experienced a similar level of notoriety over the weekend, albeit for a very different reason. According to Google’s report of their data, the number one related query after searching for Davidson this week was “wap.”

His counterpart James Shaw was less fortunate, and people asked, “Why was Green Party co-leader James Shaw in the news so much last week?”