What can we learn from Muffin Break's 'Bean Poll' 

As we close in on election day on November 7, it feels like there's a new poll, with a new set of numbers, coming out every other day. But there's one poll that boasts of having a pretty good track record since it began in 2002. I am, of course, talking about the Muffin Break Bean Poll . . . Buy a coffee at one of the more than 30 Muffin Break cafes around the country and you get a bean to cast your vote. And it's got a pretty decent track record. In 2023, the Bean Poll had National on 35 percent. On election day, they got 38 percent. Not bad for a coffee bean. And before the 2020 election, it had Labour cracking 50 percent, something plenty of traditional polls didn't see coming. Labour went on to do exactly that. So, amid all the serious polling this campaign, should we actually be paying more attention to the beans? Well we thought we'd get the man who knows more about polls than almost anyone and that's Dr Stuart Donovan, Motu senior researcher and creator of the Poll of polls model being used by the NZ Herald.