⁍ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is on course for a historic election win next month.

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⁍ An opinion poll showed support for her Labour Party was at 48%, down 5 percentage points from the last poll in July.

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⁍ The results mean Labour would get 62 of the 120 parliament seats and would be able to govern alone.

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– Jacinda Ardern is poised to become New Zealand’s youngest prime minister in more than 150 years if her Labour Party wins next month’s election, Reuters reports. According to the latest 1News-Colmar Brunton poll, the Labour Party’s support is at 48%, down 5 percentage points from the last poll in July, but still enough to give it a majority in the 120-member parliament. That means Labour would get 62 of the 120 seats and would be able to govern alone, which would be a first since the country adopted a German-style mixed member proportional system in 1994. Ardern became the country’s youngest leader in more than 150 years in 2017 after the kingmaker nationalist New Zealand First Party agreed to form a government with her Labour Party, ending the National Party’s decade in power. Ardern, 40, also holds huge global appeal due to her response to last year’s attack by a white supremacist on two mosques, a fatal volcanic eruption, and her success with the COVID-19 outbreak. But opposition National Party leader Judith Collins, 61, wants voters to think instead about the lackluster economy, and what she calls Ardern’s broken promises. In the 90-minute debate, Collins promised she would cut taxes immediately, spend billions on infrastructure, build more homes, and manage COVID-19 quarantine facilities better. Ardern’s popularity as preferred prime minister was steady at 54%, while Collins dropped to 18%. The polls also showed the Green Party got 6% support, while the ACT New Zealand got 7%.