WELLINGTON, New Zealand — After the debate between President Biden and Donald Trump turned disastrous for the incumbent Thursday, comedian Jon Stewart quipped on “The Daily Show” that he needed to “call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”
Stewart was riffing on some American liberals’ fantasy when Trump was last in power. Many talked of moving to New Zealand, a faraway place they viewed as utopian, with a progressive leader in Jacinda Ardern and natural beauty that was second to none. A significant number actually did: Data from the 2018 Census shows a jump in American-born residents in New Zealand of nearly 30 percent, or more than 6,000 people, compared with five years earlier.
Americans, like Stewart, looking for an escape hatch will find New Zealand a very different place this time around. Ardern is gone, and so too are her policies. This country is now led by a coalition of center-right, libertarian and populist lawmakers who have formed its most conservative government in decades.
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“This is the sharpest political swing in a generation, the coalition is the most conservative I have seen in 30-odd years,” said Janet Wilson, a political commentator who previously worked for the mainstream conservative National Party, which leads the coalition government, and is now sharply critical of it.
The sudden shift has caught out some American expats. Jamie Pomeroy and her husband, both in their mid-30s, moved to Queenstown from Boulder, Colo., in September, the month before the election.