When the critics and media commentary mounted and public opinion polls showed ebbing support, National's campaign strategists doubled down, convinced the demand for change would prevail
In the final fortnight of the campaign, as National seemed to be running out of steam and putting New Zealand First into an unintended controlling position, its brains trust held its nerve.
Those calling the shots on the party's campaign kept reminding themselves of the underlying message they'd received from tens of thousands of New Zealanders over the past 18 months – that they'd had enough and wanted change.
When, two days out, a Newshub poll showed National falling as low as 34.5 percent in the party vote, leader Christopher Luxon and his campaign team knew otherwise. They thought they were well higher, higher even than the same night's 1News poll that put the party on 37 percent.
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On election night numbers, they sit just under 39 percent. That is hardly a stunning result compared with past winning party performances (around 47 for John Key in 2008 and 2011 and 45 for Bill English in ultimate defeat in 2017). The total number of people who voted National still sits under 900,000 before perhaps a couple of hundred thousand special votes to be added in for the party. In the final wash-up in 2020, Jacinda Ardern's Labour won 1.4m.
But early on Saturday evening at National's election night headquarters at Shed 10 on Queens Wharf in Auckland, the smiles on the faces of the party's movers and shakers were immovable. In the first half of the night National sat into the early 40s in early counts, wise heads knowing it would drop towards the 40 mark but also knowing it had done enough.
Asked if there had been any real doubts in the final phase of the campaign, as tax and welfare policies remained under criticism and Labour claimed "momentum", one senior insider said the strategists and Luxon just had to keep recalling the strength of the mood for change. Shut out the noise. Counter Labour's attack and know New Zealand wanted them out.
"If anything, maybe we did too well too early," the official said. "When we got into the 40s, people thought 'right, I can leave it to others' and we started to come off a bit."
People spoken to by Newsroom said the campaign team felt it had access to better information from internal polling and public responses, the breakdowns on who was reacting and how well to messaging via social media and advertising, than external pollsters and commentators and simply had to hold its nerve.
They claimed there was no panic when Labour's Chris Hipkins came back to 'win' the second and third televised leaders' debates, as National looked past media and Twitter commentary to a simple equation: who won over the most undecided voters on each night's performance.
National planners were taken aback by how averagely Hipkins, who they believed would be highly effective on the stump, performed in at least the first month of the campaign proper.
One senior decision-maker told Newsroom that even as New Zealand First put one or two percentage points on in the polls after Luxon conceded he would, grudgingly if necessary, call Winston Peters after the election, National's thinking remained that two-party government with Act was fully attainable.
On election night results that will be a close-run thing. In the second half of the evening at Shed 10, National's share dipped first under the 40-mark and eventually just under 39. With Act on 8.98 and at least a one-seat extra overhang (beyond the Port Waikato addition) created by the Māori party's success, the NZ First total of 6.46 percent could be needed.
But for the National Party thinkers, those levels of support would mean they would not be forced into areas by Peters that they might not want to go. They might need his help, as he gallantly offered in a speech on the night from Russell, but not need him as a crutch on everything.
One National figure told Newsroom that the election night outcome, which they conceded could change to a degree after specials, vindicated the "high-risk" move for the party to validate NZ First as a possible government participant through the video message Luxon issued a fortnight ago.
"It was a very [he used the word with great emphasis] considered decision."
Another said the current mix of vote shares gave National a firm mandate and more freedom with both Act and NZ First; neither wildly outperformed to a point demanding greater attention in coming weeks. One attendee joked: "Act spent $5m for a 1 percentage point gain from 2020." The yellow and pink party lifted from 7.6 to 8.9.
One puzzling theme the National Party had picked up in focus groups in the mid-point of campaigning was from people saying they wanted National to win, but didn't necessarily want to vote for them.
This was answered with persistent messaging that party voting National was the only guarantee of change. The election night result showed some of that message might have dissipated into voting for National electorate candidates, with a phenomenal performance in many seats, turning strong Labour bases to National or mounting substantial National majorities in blue seats.
National used social media marketing experts Topham Guerin – who had success working for both Boris Johnson's Conservatives and Scott Morrison. Luxon's victory speech wryly noted the party had "ticked every Tok" and left no possibility unturned.
There was high praise on the night for the party's campaign director Jo de Joux. "One of the very best," one party worker said. "Formidable," said party president Sylvia Wood.
And for MP Chris Bishop who chaired National's campaign. Bishop's emotional and, at times, agitated defence of National against attacks from Labour and others, including in his and staffers' eyes, some in the media, was criticised by commentators at the end of the campaign. But several key figures privately praised his tenacity.
Bishop's sharp pushbacks reflected a broader internal National view that commentators and public polling were not giving National's reading of the public mood sufficient credit.
One party insider told Newsroom that National felt in some stages of the campaign like it was being treated as the incumbent government, such was the intensity of scrutiny on its proposals and claims and the 'opposition' to its policy platform as the "Opposition'. There was much muttering on the night about the Council of Trade Unions' research work on National's tax, welfare and spending plans and what was claimed to be errors accepted and amplified by media outlets.
But the party needs to move past all that now.
It has won itself, from the disaster of 2020 where it shed 414,000 votes from 2017's result, a dominant position in what will be a centre-right government. It has come back from basically the position Labour now finds itself, sitting around 26 or 27 percent and with vast losses in the ranks of its MPs.
As Wood told the roaring party faithful: "The National Party has come a long way."
