Voting has begun already of course, the official date of the NZ general election is Saturday 17 October.
- Advance voting has surged due to virus concerns.
- The latest polls suggest incumbent PM Ardern's government will be returned, but may fall short of governing in its own right (ie Ardern may need to rely on a coalition partner). 61 seats is the magic number to govern without a coalition partner.
- Like the US election that is 3 weeks away, a source of uncertainty is if a clear result will be visible on the day, this seems more likely for NZ than it perhaps does for the US.
Differences between the two major parties are not vast, and its unlikely the election outcome will have too much impact on markets (except in the case of an uncertain result as already mentioned).
