Ardern’s popularity stumbles on New Zealand’s slow road to vaccination

Polls this week suggest the glacial speed of the Covid vaccine rollout is starting to affect Labour's support, even as PM remains personally popular

An unbeatable leader in times of crisis, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern's soaring popularity has teetered on the country's slow road to vaccination.

This week, polling in New Zealand indicated some of the gloss may be fading from the Ardern government's second term, which has enjoyed soaringly high popularity over the past year. The poll, conducted by Newshub/Reid Research, put Labour at 43%, down 9.7 percentage points. The results followed a similar trend line polling by TVNZ from May.