Source: Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
16 October 2026
National may not be leading in the latest political poll but it’s outpacing other parties for sheer numbers of Facebook posts and is outflanking Labour for the proportion of negative posts.
That’s one of the findings of the first week of the 2026 New Zealand Social Media Study, which is tracking how political parties and their leaders are using Facebook.
“So far, National is out-posting everyone else, taking the torch from ACT which was most prolific Facebook user in the 2023 election. Among the party leaders, National’s Christopher Luxon is also the most active Facebook campaigner, with 36 posts in the first week of our monitoring,” said study lead Dr Mona Krewel from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
Dr Krewel and her research team have analysed 544 Facebook posts by political parties and their leaders that were published from 5 to 11 October 2026. The research follows similar studies ahead of the 2020 and 2023 elections.
While National is posting frequently on Facebook this year, Dr Krewel describes much of its content as “remarkably repetitive”.
“The party seems to be following the old spin doctors’ rule known as the ‘vomit principle’: the idea that a political message needs to be repeated so often that even those delivering it are sick of hearing it before it is likely to get any cut through with the public,” she said.
Analysis of posts also suggests both National and Labour are bucking one of the established patterns of election campaigning.
“In the usual course of elections, opposition parties tend to campaign more negatively than governing parties, while incumbent parties are more likely to defend their record and emphasise their achievements. But National and Labour appear to be turning this conventional pattern on its head.
“If we subtract the percentage of negative posts from the percentage of positive posts, we are left with what we call the ‘net positivity’ of the campaign. Our analysis clearly shows National has considerably lower net positivity than Labour. In other words, National is campaigning more negatively, despite it being the incumbent party,” said Dr Krewel.
Negative campaigning is double-edged sword, she warns. “While attacks can damage an opponent, they can also backfire on the attacker so whether National’s more confrontational approach will pay off remains to be seen.”
Across all nine parties included in this year’s study, the economy was by far the most frequently discussed topic in Facebook posts, appearing in about 60 percent.
“The dominance of economic issues isn’t surprising. Much like the 2023 New Zealand election, and indeed in elections around the world, economic concerns remain at the centre of political competition and are consistently among the issues voters care about most,” said Dr Krewel.
More than three decades after US political strategist James Carville coined his famous phrase “It’s the economy, stupid”, political parties appear to be following the same basic campaign logic: if you want to win elections, you need to talk about the economy.
“This is particularly true at a time when many households are concerned about their financial situation, the cost of living, and their economic future. Parties know these are the issues that matter to voters, and they are competing to convince them that they have the better answers.”
The New Zealand Social Media Study will continue to monitor Facebook posts until election day on 7 November. Full results from the first week of monitoring are available here.
About the study
The New Zealand Social Media Study tracks Facebook posts by political parties and party leaders in the five weeks leading up to the general election. This is the third election it has run. This year, the research team is using a hybrid approach to analyse Facebooks posts. The approach combines artificial intelligence for most coding tasks with independent validation by human coders.