Second political poll spells trouble for Simon Bridges as Jacinda Ardern's popularity skyrockets

Jacinda Ardern's popularity has been further cemented after a second poll revealed Opposition leader Simon Bridges is languishing as preferred Prime Minister.

TVNZ's latest Colmar-Brunton Poll shows Ardern's popularity skyrocketed to 63 percent, while Bridges is dwindling at just 5 percent. The National Party, meanwhile, recorded its lowest numbers in over 15 years at 29 percent.

On this poll, Labour is up by a mile at 59 percent. The Greens sit at 4.7 percent and New Zealand First 3 percent.

The result comes after Monday's Newshub-Reid Research Poll showed Bridges had dropped to 4.5 percent as preferred Prime Minister while National fell to 30.6 percent.

Ardern and Labour, meanwhile, were well on top in the Newshub poll - Labour 56.5 percent in the party standings and Ardern 59.5 percent as preferred Prime Minister.

The poll couldn't have come at a worse time for Bridges after he confirmed on Wednesday that two MPs are challenging National's leadership. While he wouldn't say who they were at the time, they were later revealed to be Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller and Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye.

Muller is out for Bridges' job, while Kaye is pushing for Paula Bennett's deputy leader position.

The National Party is holding an emergency meeting on Friday following the leadership challenge. Bridges told The AM Show on Wednesday he was "very confident" he would win.

"We're putting that to the test so we can move on from the distraction really quickly and get back to what matters.

"The overwhelming majority of our caucus is focused on those things I have been talking about, our economic future as a country, jobs, growth."

The result of Monday's Newshub-Reid Research Poll.
The result of Monday's Newshub-Reid Research Poll.

But political scientist Dr Bryce Edwards is tipping Muller to win Friday's vote.

"I think the momentum is with Todd Muller at the moment just because this is just so damaging for Simon Bridges and [that] his caucus colleagues can see that," Dr Edwards told The AM Show on Thursday.