National MP Erica Stanford says her party is exactly where it wants to be as the political year comes to an end.
Speaking to AM and reflecting on 2022, Stanford heaped praise on her boss Christopher Luxon and said she had high hopes for next year's election.
"We've had an incredible year," she said on Friday.
"If you look back to a year ago, I think the polls had us around 26 percent - [now] we're heading up towards 40."
Last week, polling had National at 38 percent and Labour at 33 percent.
That same TVNZ-Kantar poll also showed Luxon had gained further momentum in the preferred Prime Minister's stakes but was still trailing incumbent Jacinda Ardern by six points.
But Luxon's latest preferred Prime Minister result (23 percent) was in stark contrast to that of former National leader Judith Collins, who only registered 5 percent in the same poll this time last year.
When Luxon first took over as National leader, his preferred Prime Minister result from a Newshub-Reid Research poll was 17.8 percent while Ardern's debut result after taking the helm of Labour back in 2017 was 26.3 percent.
Stanford was confident Luxon's stocks would continue rising in the lead-up to the election.
"We're exactly where we want to be," she said. "Of course, there's a really long way to go until the election and it's not been a perfect year - it never is for anybody. You always have ups and downs but it's how you handle those ups and downs.
"I think Christopher Luxon has done an incredibly good job… when we've had some speedbumps, of navigating us through those like no one else."
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty, appearing on AM with Stanford, also had high praise for his boss.
"The fact is we've faced a few problems over the last few years, like every country in the world, and the Prime Minister continues to face that head-on and continues to rate relatively high in the preferred Prime Minister [poll] compared to others," he said.
"With all the stuff that she's had to deal with over the last couple of years, to be still rating where she is I think that needs the deserved credit."
Watch the video for AM's final political panel of 2022.
