The seemingly amazing Ms Ardern-an analysis of the New Zealand 2020 general election

 As predicted, the New Zealand 2020 general election rewarded New Zealand's Labour Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, with a convincing victory and the first single-party majority in the New Zealand Parliament since the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) representation in New Zealand elections starting from 1996.

Ms Ardern and the New Zealand Labour Party won 64 seats, its highest total ever, winning 43 single member constituencies, or electorates, out of 72 and 21 out of 48 list seats. Its vote share of 49.15% was also its highest since 1946, showing an improvement of as high as 12.26%, although many pollsters believed it would poll over 50% of the vote. Ms Ardern was undoubtedly rewarded for her first-class handling of the coronavirus pandemic in New Zealand, where face masks are not compulsory on public transport and where social distancing is for the most part no longer mandated at present, although under its alert levels system this could potentially change. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Ms Ardern was faring rather well during her first term, having pulled ahead of the National Party during 2018 and keeping level with them right up until the coronavirus pandemic struck New Zealand. There were however two notable setbacks to Labour's otherwise excellent victory-they failed to capture the key marginal electorate of Auckland Central, which was instead won by the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick by 492 votes, and they lost the Maori electorate of Waiaraki to the Maori Party, who re-entered the New Zealand Parliament.

Another factor that rewarded Labour, however, was the terrible campaign National ran under its leader Judith Collins, as well as having experienced two leadership changes in three months, leading to perceptions that it was in turmoil and not functioning as an opposition. Todd Muller ousted Simon Bridges as National leader in May following National's nosedive in opinion polls, but he served for less than two months and Ms Collins was subsequently elected National leader. The National Party of New Zealand suffered its worst vote share drop ever-17.66%-and fell to just 35 seats, its second lowest ever; its vote share of 26.79% was also its second worst ever showing. In particular it lost considerable ground to the heavily pro-free market ACT Party and only finished first on the list vote in four electorates: Epsom (ACT's only electorate in New Zealand), Tamaki, Taranaki-King Country, and Waikato, and finished third in some where the Greens polled particularly well, although it only finished third in two electorates: Auckland Central and Epsom. The most significant loss to National came when Nick Smith, New Zealand's Father of the House, lost the electorate of Nelson that he had represented for 30 years, with the second most significant being the electorate of Rangitata, which had never before elected a Labour MP.

The Greens, having done well to hold on in 2017, were rewarded for their time in coalition with Labour, gaining 2 seats to increase their total back to double figures, although surprisingly it was not they but ACT who finished third, with ACT polling 7.98% and the Greens polling 7.57%, which nevertheless represents an improvement of 1.3% over 2017. There is no doubt that the acclaim Jacinda Ardern acquired whilst tackling the coronavirus crisis indirectly blunted the Greens' rise, even though the Greens achieved many environmental concessions during their time as junior partners (most notably the Zero Carbon Act), and furthermore their co-leader, James Shaw, was revealed to have allocated money from the New Zealand COVID-19 fund towards a "Green Private School" in Taranaki, even though the New Zealand Greens, like the vast majority of Green Parties, oppose giving funds to private schools; Mr Shaw apologised for the error.

New Zealand First, on the other hand, paid the price for failing to achieve any real concessions during their time as junior coalition partners to Labour, even with their leader Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister. NZ First polled its lowest ever vote share, 2.66%, consequently losing all nine of its seats, and in only five electorates did it even finish third (in Jacinda Ardern's electorate of Mount Albert it finished sixth!). With this crushing defeat, and with Mr Peters now 75 (he was also the only remaining New Zealand MP first elected in the 1970s) he will likely retire from New Zealand politics in short order. Arguably, its vote splintered in three directions-to Labour, to National, and to the ACT. The ACT achieved its best ever result, finishing third with 10 seats, partly because of the National Party's internal troubles, but could make no advances in any electorate outside Epsom as it found itself squeezed by the Nationals in key marginals-usually to no avail for the National candidate in question. 

The New Conservative Party and the Opportunities Party never got anywhere, although the New Conservatives finished third in four electorates (two of them Maori electorates with no National candidate), and TOP finished third in Ohariu, formerly the seat of Peter Dunne, once leader of the now defunct centrist party United Future. The New Conservatives polled just 1.51% and TOP just 1.41%, falling even from its poor inaugural run in 2017. Advance NZ, meanwhile, having achieved infamy for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 during the election campaign, and whose leader, former National MP Jami-Lee Ross, is under investigation for corruption, did not get anywhere and polled just 0.88%. The wooden spoon in this New Zealand election went to the agrarian Heartland Party, the only party in this election to poll less than 1000 votes, although on his personal vote its leader Mark Ball finished a respectable third in the electorate of Port Waitako.

Ms Ardern's first-class response even boosted turnout, unusually enough for a parliamentary election held since the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world-turnout increased to an impressive 82.5%, even with Labour's "landslide victory" (if it can be called that under MMP, where single party landslides on the scales of the British general elections of 1983 or 1997 are virtually impossible) a foregone conclusion. With New Zealand Labour now having a majority of 8, it will technically no longer need to include coalition partners, but it may nevertheless include the Greens as coalition partners again, or in a confidence and supply agreement, to ensure its agenda passes (the National Party could have governed with half the seats in the New Zealand Parliament in 2014, but understandably chose to enter into a confidence and supply agreement with ACT and United Future), especially whilst the coronavirus pandemic still plagues the world.