David Seymour says don't vote National to 'play it safe', ACT vote will grow right bloc

David Seymour has told ACT supporters worried about the tight election there's no need to vote National to "play it safe", because a vote for ACT still grows the right bloc.

The ACT Party leader's message comes as talk of strategic voting gains momentum across the political spectrum during the knife-edge race.

Seymour addressed a crowd of more than 200 people at a public meeting in the rural Canterbury settlement of West Melton on Thursday night.

It was standing room only in the Melton Estate vineyard venue, with some people tucked just outside the door craning their necks to see Seymour speaking in front of a giant New Zealand flag.

Before opening up the floor for questions, Seymour acknowledged some supporters were wary the election would be close.

"There are some people who say, 'well, look, my heart probably is with ACT, but I'm so terrified of Labour getting in ... I'm going to play it safe. I'm going to give my party vote to National'," he said.

But a party vote for ACT still meant extra MPs on the right, Seymour said.

"Those MPs count just as much as extra National MPs. It's the size of the coalition that matters. So there's no risk to putting your party vote with ACT, you're still helping re-elect the coalition."

Seymour said voting ACT would help the coalition go "further and faster" on the matters he had already addressed, including productivity, regulation, the public service, healthcare and crime.

He said the ACT Party had two missions: to keep Labour out of government, and keep Labour's ideas out of National.

"That's why it's important to have an ACT Party in the coalition, ideally with much larger numbers.

"And if you believe the polls - and when they're good, I certainly do - then you can see actually as many as 15 ACT MPs."

ACT gained 1.1 points in the latest RNZ Reid Research poll, reaching 10.1 percent - its strongest result in this poll since the 2023 election.

The result could be a sign the strategic voting push is resonating, given that gain is a direct swap with National, which is down by 1.1.

Talk of strategic voting this election has centred around the idea of an overhang, which occurs when a party wins more electorate seats than its proportion of the party vote would entitle it to. Extra seats are added in Parliament to make room for them.

Deliberately engineering an overhang - using the right bloc as an example - involves encouraging people to vote for the National candidate in their electorate, and give their party vote to ACT or New Zealand First.

However, National is telling its base not to risk that, and it's very much pushing a two-tick campaign.

Te Pāti Māori is actively deploying the strategy, asking its base to vote for Te Pāti Maōri candidates in the Māori electorates, and party vote Labour or Green to grow the left bloc.