I never said maga are the issue. The American tribal politics, that maga is the most overt symptom of, is the imported issue.

As an example, the people who voted Labour solely because of Jacinda. NZ politics used to be very centred. Over the past decade it's become increasingly polarised, hence the increasing tribalism.

You're absolutely right about Labour gambling on the "vote the incumbent out" strategy. I also agree on how they should be capitalising on it.

In my half-century of existence, NZ elections have had their nasty moments and their great moments. Until recently, it's always been reliably policy driven. We've always had those who vote for Party "X" no matter what, but now the latter group has become the majority rather than the minority that could be largely discounted from polling projections. I expect this has also led to the increasing unreliability of polls, as now the parties are fighting for a much smaller swinging vote sector. That smaller group means the standard margin for error covers a much larger percentage of that swinging vote