On the campaign trail, New Zealand leader Chris Hipkins faces an uphill battle

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was on the campaign trail Monday visiting an art gallery when his guide asked him what he pictured when he looked up at a towering wooden sculpture.
“I was actually just contemplating that,” Hipkins replied. “And I don’t really have a readout of it.” His response seemed to reinforce a criticism of Hipkins – that it’s hard to know what he’s passionate about, what his vision is in politics.
But it perhaps also spoke to the unpretentious, Everyman image that Hipkins likes to project.
Opinion polls put his Labour Party significantly behind the more conservative National Party, led by former businessman Christopher Luxon, whose promise of tax cuts to help the nation’s “squeezed middle” seems to be resonating with voters.