There were hopes last night that the Prime Minister might recognise the apparent difficulty of his position and resign.
It seems that numbers yesterday firmed against him.
But there was no real indication of what he might do.
One Minister told an MP from a coalition partner that those opposed to Christopher Luxon staying in the leadership were confident they had the numbers to defeat him.
Certainly, his own communications were much more sober than his response to the challenge in April.
He seemed to leave the door open to a resignation in a brief statement that he published on X yesterday afternoon.
“It is clear from various media reports and conversations that there is increased speculation about my leadership,” the statement said.
“It is my firm belief that division and disunity are a major distraction only 90 days out from the election.
“I also believe this distraction is unfair to the New Zealand people, and dedicated National Party candidates, supporters and volunteers, when there is so much at stake.
“For these reasons, this issue needs to be resolved quickly, and I am calling an urgent in-person Caucus meeting tomorrow at 9:30 am in Wellington to resolve the issue.”
The statement is notable for conceding that the media reports are credible and for the absence of any declaration of a desire to remain in the job.
There was talk that a delegation might visit him last night to try to persuade him to resign but POLITIK could not find any confirmation that any had.
That leaves this morning before the Caucus.
There are conflicting reports about who is supporting him and who may not be.
But there may be some confusion because any despatch of a leader is usually a two-stage process.
First, the Caucus must agree that he has lost its confidence.
Thus, a long-time friend and ally like Police Minister Mark Mitchell might support him in that vote.
But if the vote is lost, then Mitchell would be free to support any of the leadership tickets being talked about or even contest the leadership himself.
However, the two most talked about candidates are Education Minister Erica Stanford and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop.
Ultimately, National is behind with women and Auckland, and Stanford, who is the MP for East Coast Bays, would be likely to attract more female and Auckland votes than Bishop.
That may make her the favourite. However, she is untested at a leadership level, and some MPs have reservations about her ability to handle the pressures of the job.
On the other hand, she consistently tops the NZ Herald’s “Mood of the Boardroom” poll of what 150 CEOs think of individual Cabinet Ministers.
There have been media suggestions that Chris Bishop, if he lost out on the leadership, could take over finance from Nicola Willis.
That would be an unnecessary humiliation for her and set up a whole set of consequential changes that would be far too complicated to deal with 90 days out from an election.
In previous leadership changes, the Nats have been careful to ensure no one suffered an excessive humiliation and that there were no real losers.
So Bishop could serve as deputy to Stanford, but Mitchell might be more popular within the Caucus.
Resolving that issue might be one of the trickier challenges facing the Caucus.
What did seem clear last night was that they will want to resolve those issues before the Caucus meets rather than have a divisive vote on the positions.
That might be possible during a non-election year, but this close to an election there is a need for speed and unity.
Changing a leader by a Government before an election has not worked in New Zealand since 1940 when Peter Fraser replaced Michael Joseph Savage and went on to win the 1943 election.
Six replacement Prime Ministers have gone on to lose their next election; Sir Keith Holoyake (in 1957. He would win again in 1960); Sir John Marshall (1972); Sir Wallace Rowling (1975); Mike Moore (1990); Dame Jenny Shipley (1999); Sir Bill English (2017 – he won the popular vote but failed to form a government); Chris Hipkins (2023).
Most of those changes were made at least a year out from the election, but Mike Moore replaced Sir Geoffrey Palmer only eight weeks before the election.
National has a bit longer, 12 weeks.
But it’s still short.
In a study of the 1990 election, two political scientists, Jack Vowles and Peter Aimer, concluded that Moore became a factor among those who were still undecided about how they would vote when the campaign began.
“The evidence has confirmed the presence of a small electoral effect, consistently in Moore’s favour,” they said.
“He attracted some late deciders, probably deterred others from leaving Labour; and those who did leave appeared to do so despite, rather than because of, the leadership change.”
There may be those in the Caucus who think that an upheaval on the scale of that being proposed would be hardly worth it for “a small electoral effect.”
But their caution could be to no avail.
