Judith Collins says a new poll showing her personal level of support behind that of ACT's David Seymour actually showed a "very good" result for National, with Labour losing support.
Labour dropped 9.7 points to 43 percent in the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, but is still light years ahead of National on 28.7 percent, up 1.7 points, and could govern with the support of the Greens.
Even with ACT's 11.1 percent, the right-wing parties are miles off being able to form a Government - their combined support less than that of Labour.
And Collins' support as preferred Prime Minister at 8.2 percent is below that of Seymour on 8.6 percent.
"Well, look, I've seen plenty of polls through the '90s that had Winston Peters more popular than Jim Bolger - I know who was the Prime Minister," Collins told The AM Show on Wednesday.
"It's very interesting… it's nothing really. That poll was actually very good because Labour came down about 10 points… We picked up some… It is very good. We are starting to move forward."
That's not entirely clear however. The party's bump - up 1.7 points - was entirely within the margin of error.
"We did pick up support. We did. We picked up some support and we're moving in a trend," said Collins.
That might be true. At the election last year National got 25.1 percent of the vote. In a Newshub-Reid Research poll in May, the party got 27 - rising to 28.7 in the latest.
"The main thing is that New Zealanders are saying that this Government has lost touch, is losing touch and it is not representing them. I'm very happy."
Despite falling behind Seymour, Collins' support rose too - up 2.6 percent, which is statistically significant.
Collins, who once said she'd resign if National's support was below 35 percent, acknowledged it's unlikely the party will be able to govern alone after the next election, as Labour is now.
"ACT needs National, National needs ACT. We know that we have to be able to form a Government together and that's why we're very happy to work together."
