Three hundred people in Christchurch think ACT leader David Seymour is interesting enough to pay $70 to have lunch and hear him speak.
A lunch and tour of Parliament with the ACT leader listed on Trade Me is going for nearly $12,000, and according to party insiders there was a waiting list of 24 people to get to an event he was at in Christchurch.
People are curious. People are interested.
He’s got his act together. He’s hustling to get into the news bulletins and he’s quick at getting his responses out.
The reason we did the story on Tuesday about ACT dominating National was because a producer commented on how much David Seymour had been in the news bulletin lately.
We reflected on why that was and then Maiki Sherman crafted this:
The latest UMR poll has him ahead of Judith Collins as preferred Prime Minister. In our 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton polls this year he’s been nipping at her heels, but never nudged above her.
There are a few things going on here.
The ACT party is riding a wave of success after the election as National struggles to pick itself up.
There’s no doubt Judith Collins has firmed up the National base, but she hasn’t resonated with potential National voters in the centre and to the right. That is noteworthy because National and ACT have been scrapping over territory, but she hasn’t been bringing over those ACT voters back National.
National should be leaving ACT to it and go fishing for those centre voters. That’s the territory where elections are won. They should leave ACT to be fat and healthy to have a chance at teaming up come election time.
There’s also the fact that David Seymour communicates well and succinctly. He’s comfortable in his own skin and likeable in a quirky way. The Dancing with the Stars factor still follows him. People saw his terrible dancing and liked him.
I’ve seen ACT morph like a lava lamp over the years – think Richard Prebble, Rodney Hide, Heather Roy and a lonely David Seymour. Now he has a bevy of buddies. We were even allowed in to film the caucus meeting for the first time this week. It’s looking a lot plumper than it used to.
Politics aside he’s doing a good job.
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