SYDNEY, Australia — Her face has graced magazine covers all over the world. Her leadership style has been studied by Harvard scholars. Her science-and-solidarity approach to the coronavirus, which included answering questions in a sweatshirt after putting her daughter to bed, has drawn legions of fans in other countries who write to say, “I wish you were here.”
The global left (and a chunk of the center) has fallen hard for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, giving her a prodigious presence for a leader who manages a smaller population than many mayors do. Now her country’s voters have come around as well.
On Saturday, Ms. Ardern, 40, was well on her way to a second term. Early results in a national election showed her Labour Party projected to win a clear majority in Parliament, with around 66 of 120 seats and 50.3 percent of the vote — its strongest showing, by far, since New Zealand overhauled its electoral system in the mid-1990s.
Riding a wave of support for her “go hard, go early” response to the coronavirus, which has effectively been stamped out in the country, Ms. Ardern has now cemented her position as New Zealand’s most popular prime minister in generations, if not ever.
The sizable win reflects a rapid rise to political stardom.
Just three years ago, Ms. Ardern was a last-minute choice to lead the Labour Party, and in her first term, she often struggled to fulfill her progressive promises, from making housing more affordable to eliminating child poverty and attacking climate change.
But after managing the responses to the Christchurch terrorist attacks, the White Island volcano eruption and a pandemic — not to mention the birth of her first child — she has quickly become a global standard-bearer for a progressive politics that defines itself as compassionate and competent in crisis.
“The anti-Trump?” That’s what Vogue called her. “Saint Jacinda?” That one comes from the usually staid Financial Times, while a New York Times editorial last year carried the headline: “America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern.”
In New Zealand, a small-c conservative or small-c center kind of country where the love for Ms. Ardern had generally lagged her profile abroad, she now finally has a mandate that (almost) matches her international adoration. If Labour’s margin holds, it will be the first time since 1951 that a party has won more than 50 percent of the vote in New Zealand.
What’s unknown is whether that will help deliver the major policy successes that have eluded her.
“She has significant political capital,” said Jennifer Curtin, director of the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland. “She’s going to have to fulfill her promises with more substance.”
Ms. Ardern has said very little about her legislative plans. She won primarily with a pandemic-fueled surge in support, as New Zealand recently declared community transmission of the coronavirus eliminated for a second time.
The remote Pacific Island nation of five million people, which has tallied only 25 coronavirus deaths, now looks and feels mostly normal: A recent rugby match between Australia and New Zealand in Wellington, the capital, drew 30,000 fans.
Given such progress when other countries are seeing coronavirus cases increase, Ms. Ardern sailed through her campaign with the slogan, “Let’s keep moving.”
Her opponent, Judith Collins, a lawyer and member of the center-right National Party, tried to dent her credibility by arguing that the virus had re-emerged in August on Ms. Ardern’s watch because of some kind of breach in protocol at the border or at a quarantine facility.
At a handful of debates, Ms. Collins sought to portray Ms. Ardern as untrustworthy, more shine than steady leader. In the final days of the race, she labeled the prime minister a liar.
“She told us on June 23 everybody was being tested. What a lie,” Ms. Collins said at one of her final campaign events this week. “When she said she went hard and fast, she went slow and pathetic. And she lied to us about what was happening.”
Polls showed that Ms. Collins never gained much traction with lines of attack like these.
But even as Ms. Ardern glided to another term, her next government will confront an unfamiliar set of challenges.
New Zealanders have historically liked their politics down the middle. Coalition governments are the norm, and Ms. Ardern’s first term was marked by a partnership with the populist, center-right New Zealand First Party, which was projected to win no seats this time around.
Now Labour will be able to govern on its own with the support of the Greens (they were projected to win around 10 seats), giving her more leeway to move left. That will increase pressure on her to follow through on…
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