National has regained the lead in the latest 1 News Colmar Brunton poll following Simon Bridges' rise to the party leadership.

National has regained the lead in the latest 1 News Colmar Brunton poll following Simon Bridges' rise to the party leadership. Source: 1 NEWS

Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party has fallen five percentage points to 43 per cent in the poll released this evening, while National has climbed one percentage point to 44 per cent.

The Greens are on six per cent, up one, NZ First are up two to five per cent, and the Maori Party are steady on one per cent.

If the poll results were repeated at the next election, they would give National 54 seats, Labour 52, the Greens eight and NZ first six.

TVNZ Political editor Jessica Mutch says the latest poll shows the honeymoon is over for Jacinda Ardern.

"The Prime Minister has had a bad few weeks fighting fires with stories like Clare Curran, the Russian spy story, Middlemore and the Labour camp issue and these numbers reflect that," Mutch says.

"National have crept ahead to be the biggest party again but Simon Bridges isn't yet resonating with voters.

"He starts his leadership career with 10 per cent wanting him as Prime Minister. People either don't know him or don't like him, but either way it's a worry for the National leader."

Ms Ardern retains the lead as the most preferred prime minister with the support of 37 per cent of the 1007 people polled, but is down four percentage points since the previous poll in February.

Mr Bridges jumped nine points to 10 per cent after taking the National leadership.

The poll, conducted on landlines and mobiles, took place between April 7 and 11.