People very rarely read the manifestos. FFS, 85% of Green voters didn’t know who is that guy when shown a picture of Green co-leader. Hard to believe that they read the Green manifesto, instead care about global warming and vote Green.
Similarly, I think lots of people who are struggling look someone to blame, and like all demagogues, Reform gave a clear problem and a clear solution (despite that both are mostly nonsense). Then shout it for a year and make people single-issue voters. It also helped them that no party actually offered a real plan to actually solve this problem (which rightly or wrongly, it is important to many people).