Which of National's 73 list candidates is going to miss out?
This will be one of the more interesting questions after people finissh analysing this morning's Fairfax Media-Nielson poll result.
After an apparent narrowing the Nats are back up to 54%. Labour is on 35% which will please them. But the small parties - NZ First in particular, are in trouble. Isn't Labour's strategy for remaining Government dependent on support from minor parties such as NZ First? The Greens are also below 5% in this poll.
Here is the Fairfax analysis of what this means.
Labour's situation may not yet be irredeemable - it will be heartened that, on this result, it is within cooee of the 39 per cent of the vote it gained in 1999 to win the election. It won in 2002 with 41.2 per cent of the vote and in 2005 with 41.5 per cent.
But the numbers don't tell the full story - and comparisons to dog tucker are becoming harder to dodge.
