Judith Collins' answers in Wednesday night's debate suggest she's written off this election and has set her sights on another run in 2023, a political insider says.
Collins faced off against Labour leader Jacinda Ardern in what critics said was a more energetic contest than the recent TVNZ debate, with Collins keeping up the pace she set last week and Ardern rising to match.
"Jacinda certainly lifted her game," former Labour Party president Mike Williams told The AM Show on Thursday morning.
But with National stuck 20 points behind Labour in the polls, not even a resurgent ACT Party is looking likely to get them across the line on October 17.
"We're now heavily in campaign mode, so at seven o'clock every morning, both Judith Collins and Jacinda Ardern are getting the overnight polling, right, and they're really responding to that," Williams explained - and having steered the party through three elections, and another as campaign manager, he'd know.
"What Jacinda Ardern's getting is something around 49, 50, 52 percent; what Judith Collins is getting is something around 30."
While 30's not near enough to win, that result on election night would be a lot better than what National got under Bill English in 2002 - 21 percent.
"Judith was going after her base. She was running not to win, but to avoid a bad defeat. What did we see? We saw her endorse Donald Trump - well, that's not a majority feeling."
Collins was booed by the audience when she praised the US President's efforts in the Middle East.
"Backing off climate change stuff, and all this sucking up to farmers," Williams continued. "The farmers aren't going to vote for Labour - she's desperate to hold onto that 20 percent that National got down to in 2002."
Williams said if she can get "a bit above 30" on election day, "then she gets another go". Ironically, this would be below the 35 percent mark at which Collins once said a leader should step down, and no higher than what former leaders Simon Bridges and Todd Muller were polling at earlier this year.
Political commentator Trish Sherson, a former ACT Party staffer, begged to differ - saying Collins was "pin-sharp" with detail and "starting to go after a little more than the base".
"If you think about her opening up about the death of her brother-in-law with lung cancer, and there were a few other moments - there is a much softer side to Judith Collins that we are starting [to see]. There's a lot of light and shade in there that we perhaps haven't seen before."
Williams said while Collins may have been trying to "three-dimensionalise herself", she would struggle to overcome the "economic own goal" scored by her finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith, who messed up the party's alternative budget by several billion dollars.
Williams said this election National appeared to be bleeding votes to ACT, rather than NZ First, which is what typically happens when National weakens. NZ First has been in coalition with Labour for the past three years, and is struggling in the polls.
"I'm beginning to think NZ First is going to disappear - unfortunately. I actually think he's been a real contributor to New Zealand politics."
Sherson said it might be time for NZ First leader Winston Peters to call it a day.
"There's a point, particularly in public life or high sporting life, where you have to go, is it about now just me and my ego, or am I really contributing? I think that's where, in this last term, we may have reached a tipping point."
NZ First has come back from this position of weakness before, and Peters - 75 - told The AM Show on Wednesday that despite his advancing age, he wouldn't quit if his party didn't win any seats.
