Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Opportunity Party could be the dark horse of the election

I'm not one to get excited at election time about the outside chance that small parties like Opportunity make it into Parliament.  But I reckon this year is different. If Opportunity plays this right, they might just do it.  Yesterday’s Roy Morgan poll had them at 6%.  Now, I don’t know how much stock I put in that poll because it was very volatile. National went up 5% and Labour went down 7.5%.  Swings that big have got to be questioned because they don’t seem credible.  But this is now a trend for Opportunity. They are now close to, or over, 5% in multiple polls and knocking off 5% is the one thing they must do.  It's the biggest hurdle for a new party. Voters don’t want to vote for a party if they think it’s not going to make it in. It’s a weird part of our voter psyche that makes no sense.  But never mind – it might not matter for Opportunity if they can keep polling this high.  I reckon they are benefiting from the same thing NZ First is at the moment: frustration.  Like with Pauline Hanson, Nigel Farage, and Donald Trump, voters are so frustrated by regular politicians ignoring them and their concerns for decades.  That's why they want to blow things up, break up the supermarket duopoly, break up the gentailers, buy back the BNZ, and stop the immigration.  For voters on the right, NZ First is their "blow it up" party.  For voters on the left, it’s Opportunity.  They’re the party for voters frustrated by Labour never being brave enough to do anything bold and for voters frustrated by the Greens being too weird.  Opportunity is a radical left-wing party with a land tax and a universal basic income, fronted by a nice lady from Auckland.  If they can play this right, if that polling holds up, 2026 might just, to coin a phrase on this show, be their year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.