Most left and right-leaning electorates: Where does yours sit?

You'll find those furthest left in the general electorate of Rongotai, in Wellington, while Rangitata in Canterbury is the most-right leaning.

With under a fortnight until New Zealand’s General Election, a clear divide between urban and rural areas is forming.

That’s one of the latest insights from TVNZ’s Vote Compass tool, which has now been used by more than 300,000 people.

Voters were asked a series of questions, to gauge their political leanings, and which party best aligns with their view.

1 NEWS can now reveal the most polarised electorates. Look at the charts below to see where your General or Māori electorate sits on the left-right scale.

General electorates.
Māori electorates.

NOTE ON CHARTS: A statistical algorithm was used to translate the responses to the 30 questions in the Vote Compass survey and place each electorate on a scale from left to right.

The colour of the dots shows the party which currently holds the electorate – yellow for Act, red for Labour, blue for National, white for vacant (following Andrew Falloon’s resignation from Rangitata), and grey for independent (Jami-Lee Ross in Botany after his expulsion from National).

The Wellington electorate of Rongotai shows as the most liberal on the General Roll.

Voters there were more likely than the rest of New Zealand to support free school lunches, cannabis legalisation and a greater role for the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation.

The Canterbury electorate of Rangitata, at the other end of the scale, is the most conservative.

1 NEWS reporter Andrew Macfarlane filed this report from the electorate in Canterbury.

Voters in this district are more likely to disagree with cannabis legalisation and making it easier for people to change the sex listed on their birth certificate.

Despite some significant differences, voters in both these regions do share some perspectives.

As Andrew Macfarlane explains, a divide between urban and rural areas is forming.

There’s similar support for preventing foreign ownership of residential properties, and the introduction of royalties for water bottling companies.

All seven Māori electorates appear at the left-leaning end of the scale.

To complete Vote Compass, an election tool which allows you to see where your views line up with the parties' policies. go to tvnz.co.nz/VoteCompass

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in New Zealand exclusively by TVNZ. The findings are based on 126,601 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from August 30 to September 29 2020. Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected. Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected. Similar to opinion polls, however, the data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample. Vote Compass data have been weighted by gender, age, education, personal income, Māori descent, region and partisanship to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of New Zealand according to census data and other population estimates.

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