Eleven candidates of Asian heritage were included on National's party list that was unveiled on Saturday.

Incumbent MP Nancy Lu is the highest-ranked Asian candidate on the list, sitting in 16th place and improving on the 20th position she received in the 2023 rankings.

Meanwhile, an unprecedented eight candidates on the list are of Indian descent.

However, all National candidates of Asian descent face an uphill battle to get into Parliament based on current polling.

The latest 1News Verian poll unveiled Wednesday gives Labour top spot with 30 percent of the party vote, followed by National at 29 percent, the Green Party at 12 percent, ACT at 9 percent, New Zealand First and the Opportunity Party both at 8 percent, and Te Pāti Māori at 1 percent.

This result would give the ruling coalition 57 seats in total, with National picking up 36, ACT 11 and New Zealand First 10.

On the other side of aisle, Labour would get 38 seats, the Greens 15 and Te Pāti Māori six. Their total would be 59.

The Opportunity Party could enter Parliament for the first time with nine seats.

Lu, who is once again standing as a list-only candidate for National in this year's ballot, will be hoping to know her fate on election night - unlike what happened in 2023.

Lu failed to secure a seat in Parliament on 14 October last election when preliminary election results were declared.

However, when Andrew Bayly - then a National list MP - won a by-election in Port Waikato in November 2023, it propelled Lu into the Beehive as the next candidate on the party list.

Carlos Cheung, another incumbent MP of Chinese heritage, looks like he needs to defeat Labour's Michael Wood again to win the Mt Roskill electorate if he wishes to return to office.

Melissa Lee, a senior MP of South Korean heritage who has been in Parliament since 2008, has been ranked 30th on National's party list.

The six-term lawmaker and former broadcasting minister was ranked 13th in 2023.

After sitting on the back benches as an MP for five terms, Lee was given the ethnic communities, economic development, and media and communications portfolios following the coalition government's election victory in 2023.

In April 2024, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon dumped Lee from Cabinet and stripped her of the media and communications portfolio.

However, Luxon on Saturday backed Lee to win Mt Albert from Labour's Helen White, who won the electorate in 2023 by just 18 votes.

Mt Albert is historically a Labour stronghold, with former Prime Ministers Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern representing it in Parliament.

The electorate has voted left ever since its inception in 1946.

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong is also contesting the Mt Albert seat, which makes the electorate one of the most interesting to watch in November.

National has eight candidates of Indian heritage on its party list, three more than it did in 2023.

Mahesh Muralidhar, the highest-ranked Indian-origin candidate on the list, jumped 19 places to 24th place this year.

However, it looks like Muralidhar needs to win the Tāmaki electorate to enter Parliament.

Muralidhar lost to Green Party leader Chlöe Swarbrick in Auckland Central by less than 4000 votes in 2023.

This year, he has switched to Tāmaki, which has been a National stronghold for decades before former ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden turned it pink in 2023.

Luxon on Saturday expressed confidence Muralidhar would win Tāmaki in November.

"I am very confident about that," Luxon said.

Other five candidates of Indian heritage fighting for electorate seats on the list are Ankit Bansal in Palmerston North (list ranking 53), Lalit Arya in Ōtāhuhu (list ranking 59), Sunil Kumar in Glendene (list ranking 63), Karuna Muthu in Wellington Bays (list ranking 64) and Ghouse Majeed in Manurewa (list ranking 66).

The remaining two list-only candidates of Indian descent are Robin Atwall and Ash Nayyar, who sit near-bottom at 70 and 71 respectively.

Such low rankings give them little chance of securing a seat in Parliament unless there's a major upset on election night.

Aside from Tāmaki, the five electorates in which Indian-origin candidates are standing are opposition strongholds.

Luxon, however, is betting on Bansal to win Palmerston North in November.

When asked on Saturday about National not having any Kiwi-Indian representation in the Parliament for some time, Luxon praised returning candidate Bansal for doing "an exceptionally good job over the last three years".

"[Bansal] got the party vote win there [Palmerston North]," Luxon said.

"He obviously stayed very connected to the community, very engaged, very passionate about Palmerston North, and I think he's got a good chance there as well."

Bansal ran on the National ticket for the first time in 2023 against Labour MP Tangi Utikere, managing to secure 12,195 party votes to Labour's 11,293.

However, he lost the electoral ballot by more than 3000 votes, which was expected, as Labour has won the Palmerston North seat uninterrupted since 1978.