Jenna Raeburn on National’s campaign

The Spinoff states:

We’ve asked people who worked on the major parties’ campaigns to write about their experiences and observations after election 2017. First up: Jenna Raeburn, a PR consultant who worked on the National campaign, detailing life on the big blue bus.

A good idea. Raeburn writes:

If you live in the centre of a big city you could be forgiven for thinking the Jacinda effect was real.

In the universities, the rallies, the huge crowds, and your Facebook feed, the mood for change was palpable. Something Very Big was going on and we all knew it.  

But in the rest of the country an entirely different election was playing out. The Jacinda effect did not reach South and West Auckland, and it certainly never showed up in regional New Zealand.

I was on the National Party campaign bus from 27 August to 22 September. We travelled more than 8000 kilometres and worked dawn til dusk in every corner of the country. We visited 52 electorates. There would hardly be a stretch of SH1 or SH2 north of Christchurch that we didn’t touch.

From the front seat of the bus, and on the street in every small town, it was obvious two parallel games were being played: one in the cities and one in the regions.

A tale of two halves.

Meanwhile, Labour was also failing its traditional voter base of migrants and workers. As it turned out, they couldn’t win the election with young people, women, urban liberals and students alone. They needed middle New Zealand and middle New Zealand did not turn up for them.

Labour did far better than in 2011 and 2014 but was in fact only 2% higher than the 34% they lost on in 2008.

Make no mistake about it, Labour gave up on regional New Zealand during this campaign, with the exception of one or two standout candidates (Kiri Allen and Jo Luxton come to mind, along with Labour’s only regional stalwarts, Damien O’Connor and Stuart Nash). Their talk of water taxes, bringing farming into the ETS, and unclear positions on capital gains and land taxes went down like a bucket of warm sick in rural communities. It was only a matter of time before the provinces began to rebel.

Labour could have won if they had handled tax better.

Labour either didn’t have enough people on the ground to pick up on this before it was too late, or (worse) they deliberately cast rural New Zealand aside in the hope they could win enough votes in the big cities to make up for it.

But their disdain for the provinces affected them in the cities too. New Zealanders know where their food comes from. They also know what keeps the economy ticking along. The rural disquiet, while dismissed by Labour’s base, got swing voters questioning whether Labour really knew what they were doing with the economy at all. 

Yep an extra $6 billion or so costs on the rural sector affects everyone.

Along with the regions, South and West Auckland saved the National Party. If you don’t believe me, look at Gwynn Compton’s very good analysis of the seats where National increased its share of the party vote: Māngere, Te Atatu, Manurewa, New Lynn, Manukau East… There is no escaping it. The Labour Party, despite its resurgence, despite the Jacinda Effect, lost votes in its core territory.

Their vote was up overall in those areas, but by far less than elsewhere and did actually go backwards in a couple of seats.

The one thing these electorates have in common is their very large migrant populations.

In the regions as well, the biggest crowds who turned up to campaign were groups of new migrants and first-generation New Zealanders. I challenge anyone to go back in time 10 years and find a crowd of 100+ Sikh migrants waving signs for the National Party in Te Puke. It just wouldn’t happen. But it’s happening today.

National has painstakingly built relationships with ethnic communities. The Party is a broad church and anyone who still stereotypes National as a group of white septuagenarians hasn’t been paying attention.  

Yep. At Sky City on election night there were more non-white faces than white faces.

The biggest problem with the Jacinda effect was that it never made it past the doors.

By this I mean Labour held fewer, larger, planned events surrounded by crowds of adoring supporters. These were advertised in advance, which means it’s the people who already like you that are most likely to show up.

These events made great TV and certainly created the impression of a resurgent and popular Labour Party. But their reach into communities of undecided voters was low.

I noted previously how few events Labour did that weren’t party rallies or campuses.

Bill English’s strength is in personal interactions. He listens, cares, takes the time and wins people over. While Jacinda was speaking to crowds of four or five hundred, Bill was picking them off one by one in provincial cafes.

Neither style of campaigning is wrong. Both were suited to their respective leaders and the goals of their parties. But ultimately I’m sure it meant Bill had more authentic interactions with individual, undecided voters than Jacinda did.

I think everyone agrees Bill had a great campaign.

But by September 15, I was standing on the side of the road in Lower Hutt waving National Party signs with a group of volunteers. We must have seen 300 guys in high vis driving vans or trucks – truckies, tradies, migrants, workers. Fully 295 of them were honking and waving and calling out in support.

After that I was confident National would win. Labour still hasn’t figured out a way to win back the Waitakere Man. In fact, they have gone backwards. In addition to losing migrants, this is the reason they have lost party votes in South and West Auckland. Even in the liberal central city suburbs, I strongly suspect Labour has picked up votes from women but not from men.

There is indeed a big gender split.

How can Labour retain the green, urban liberal vote in the big cities but woo back those truckies and tradies in rural New Zealand?

New caucus members like Greg O’Connor and Willie Jackson, along with their new intake of regional MPs, may have the answer. Labour sure as hell won’t be the largest party in Parliament until they figure it out.

Smart people in Labour will consider Jenna’s points. Others will just think a 10% bump was great and no need for change.