2020 election: Nick Smith likely to lose a Nelson seat

In Nelson, with more than 50 percent of the vote counted, former sitting MP, Dr. Nick Smith, appears to be in real trouble.

“If I’m brutally honest, we can’t go back from this,” Smith told his crowd of supporters at the National Party headquarters in Nelson.

Her main rival, Labor candidate Rachel Boyack, was with 15,300 votes, well ahead of Smith with 11,333.

Smith appeared to accept that he could lose his seat before the first results appeared, telling the crowd that he was “philosophical about where it could all end.”

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The 2020 campaign was the eleventh for Smith, who was first elected in 1990 as a deputy from the former Tasmanian electorate. In 1996, he first held, and won, Nelson’s seat and has held it ever since.

Smith has held 13 ministerial portfolios during his 30 years in Parliament, in the Bolger, Shipley, Key and English cabinets, spanning Conservation, Building and Construction, Housing, Education, Immigration, Corrections, Welfare, Treaty Negotiations, Environment , ACC, Climate. Change and local government.

If Boyack wins the seat and becomes the first female MP from the electorate, in keeping with a long-standing tradition in Nelson, Smith is expected to come to her to concede in person.