As summer gets into full swing, it's that time of year to reflect on what came before and look to what may happen next. This is my contribution based onThe Spinoff's annual Champs and Flops, before I read any of theirs. Except we’re going with the far more logical alliterative naming instead.
Champs:
Donald Trump
Trump was weak from 2015-2016 and he was strong from 2017-2019. 2020 set off a gradual deterioration in his position: he lost an election he was previously on track to win, then in 2021 he rolled the dice on banana republic tactics, then in 2022 he was blamed for Dobbs and for sabotaging Republican midterm efforts. The challengers were gathering - for the first time since early 2016, another Republican was almost level with him in primary polling! - and the man seemed tired and exhausting.
This year’s indictments may wound him in the long run, but they have revitalised him this year, driving him back to the forefront of national relevance. He has been lucky with so many factors outside of his control; his primary opponents have proven to be a weak field, and a persistently poor economy and other problems make him the odds-on favourite to win the presidency a second time (if you control for unknown factors like non-trivial sentencing).
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi, Tākuta Ferris, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke
There can be no contest here: a party that got back into Parliament by just 836 votes in 2020, facing the prospect of annihilation otherwise, swept six electorates, more than the Greens and ACT combined, and have from day one already proved their ability to capitalise with the National Māori Action Day. You could not possibly caveat or sell short this victory. They chose to rely on a young, progressive voter base: this has been tried all over the world, again and again, and nine out of ten times the strategy falls short. If one of their leaders had been rubbish, they would not have succeeded. If any of their candidates had not been good, they would not have won their electorate. TPM made this work across the board.
Chris Hipkins
This is weird to say considering I think he made a lot of bad decisions and he didn't exactly have sky-high approval ratings. So why am I saying this? He's the only leader besides Bill English to lose an election in the 21st century and still have a future in the role. He could plausibly lead Labour into the 2026 election, and even if he doesn't, he is seen as a stabilising figure who connected with the public better than the rest of Labour. Not bad to salvage your personal reputation out of an atrocious overall showing.
Jacinda Ardern
Can you imagine the headlines if she had led Labour into the election, lost, and instantly resigned afterwards? Instead, the reputation of Ardern the communicator is largely decoupled from the failures of Labour. She would still have a positive legacy, to be sure, but under the glare of an election her repudiation would have been global news and an unavoidable indictment. She made the right call on a personal level to get out when she did.
Chumps:
Wayne Brown
Remember, all that happened this year? He has survived, but probably nobody in the country has earned more hate in 2023.
Kiri Allan
She could have been a history-making Prime Minister or at least a strong Leader of the Opposition. She doesn’t even have a future in politics. Best of luck to her on her personal recovery and progression, and I’m sure she can still find her place in the world, but no drunk driver and alleged bully can expect to leave as one giant “what could have been”: her success was never guaranteed, and there are no easy lessons to take away here.
Michael Wood
He could have been Prime Minister or at least a Leader of the Opposition. His vote share in Mount Roskill over the elections he contested now looks like:
66.5%
54.4%
60.4%
39%
Mount Roskill was the Rangitata of this year, in terms of most viciously punishing individual failure.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Add up his years and he’s done well over a decade as Prime Minister of one of the world’s most notoriously difficult to govern democracies. This might finally be the year that ends his future.
Todd McClay
To my understanding, McClay was responsible for checking the National tax plan. This was perhaps the single biggest policy botch job of the year, pulled off the nigh-impossible feat of basically erasing tax cuts as part of the right's electoral appeal, and has since been halfway dismantled in the coalition deals. He’s one of National’s most experienced MPs and he can never expect to be let near the big Ministries.
Meka Whaitiri
Te Pāti Māori’s incredible success accidentally made Whaitiri’s final political fate all the funnier. It's been a tricky year to judge politicians rightly when so many have been wahine Māori who deserve a fair shake. Whaitiri's failure to effectively communicate as anything but a political opportunist, ditching her responsibilities right after a cyclone came through, makes her easy compared to the rest to write off. (Everybody affected by Cyclone Gabrielle also counts as a loser, in the sense that they have been totally forgotten by all sides.)
Council of Trade Unions:
Craig Renney
The Council of Trade Unions was perhaps the only force actually fighting National at this election, doing devastating work to National's tax plan. The right's victory means the CTU has only sabotaged a policy of no relevance to them, rather than leveraging that weakness to defend Fair Pay Agreements. On the other side of the ledger lies their hopelessly misguided "Out of touch" ad campaign, which did nothing to dent Chris Luxon and everything to throw dirt over their own tax offensive. The enemy’s gate is down - never think fighting more battles means you're winning the war.
Chumbawamba:
Winston Peters
I am unimpressed by his gains from the coalition agreement, and there are always plenty of Winston-curious voters; he gets knocked down and gets back up again in reasonably similar ways each time. Still, you can’t deny a comeback at his age, and the way he seized the narrative of the election, is an achievement. All the more so considering immigration wasn’t a major issue. Unlike TPM, whose successes relied on the electability of all four new MPs and the effectiveness of their two co-leaders, this was, yet again, the Winston show, and show up he did.
All that's left to shout out, then, are the best selections from The Spinoff’s contributors:
Chapman - Flop 3
Manhire - Flop 3
Te Pou - Flop 1
McKay - Flop 1
Mathias - Flop 2
Rawhiti-Connell - Flop 2
Gray - Champ 2
Hope everybody had a good Hannukah and has a good Christmas; stay tuned for more end-of-year content coming up shortly!
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