When the National Party leadership media coverage broke on 11 August, we tracked 563 news items across two days to see how the story actually moved. Christopher Luxon survived a confidence vote but carried the heaviest negative sentiment of any key player at -0.17, and his 75-second press conference with no questions taken was widely read as inadequate. Defence Minister Chris Penk went from backing Luxon, to losing his portfolios, to ruling out re-election in under 24 hours, ending the period as the most negative figure at -0.29. Nicola Willis drew the most positive framing of the five at +0.11, while Erica Stanford's silence at Wellington Airport became one of the loudest signals in the coverage. Download the free report to see the full sentiment breakdown, the narrative each player carried, and what real-time monitoring caught as the crisis unfolded.
- Volume and sentiment pulled in opposite directions. Luxon dominated the 563 items but recorded the worst average sentiment of the leaders at -0.17, a reminder that being the most-covered name is not the same as being the best-covered.
- The fastest-moving story was Chris Penk's. He went from publicly backing Luxon, to stripped of his portfolios, to out of the next election inside 24 hours, ending at -0.29 average sentiment as media framed him as a stalking horse, a fall guy and a scapegoat.
- Erica Stanford said nothing to reporters at the airport, yet drew the most polarised coverage of any player at a net -93.8, the kind of signal a single average sentiment score would miss.
