New National Party leader Todd Muller says "context" will bring swing voters back to ticking blue at this year's election.
Muller took control of the party from incumbent Simon Bridges on Friday - less than four months before the election.
During an interview with Magic Talk radio on Monday, host Peter Williams suggested New Zealand's swing-voting population was currently "in the palm" of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party's hand.
Asked by Williams how he planned to get swing voters to think about voting for National again, Muller told Magic Talk he believes things will be different in three or four months.
"The context will change - it has over the last three or four days," he said.
"It's totally understandable that the Government has had credit for their response - that we have collectively done - through the COVID health crisis," Muller said.
He added, "the greatest economic challenge of a generation" was in front of us.
"Those people that you put in that percentage - people in the middle [of Labour and National] - they have jobs at risk. Most of them will be in small businesses that are on the verge of collapsing.
"They want to actually vote for a team that's got the collective capability to provide a pathway of optimism and hope out of what is a pretty dark situation for New Zealand at the moment - that is The National Party and I'll be proving that in September."
Ardern said on Monday she had faith in her team.
"People don't have to guess with us - they see us, they know us," she told The AM Show.
"We managed to get debt down to some of the lowest levels relative to other developed countries, which put us in a very good position coming into COVID," said Ardern.
This article was amended on May 27 2020 when a reference to a poll conducted by Newshub Digital was removed.
