Election 2020: Electorates Worth Watching on Election Night

By Leith Huffadine of RNZ

The election night results for some of the country’s 72 electorates are not likely to come as much of a surprise: Mount Albert is a Labor stronghold, Epsom is practically a guarantee for the Act, and Southland is unconditionally national, for example.

But others are not so clear. Whether a boundary shift is affecting a party’s support base, a retiring MP is leaving a void to fill, a candidate’s good old-fashioned hard work has put him on the run, or there is a New electorate entirely, enough is already happening to make Election Night a little more interesting.

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While no electorate seat is likely to make a substantial difference to the composition of Parliament in this election, it is still worth keeping an eye on to see how things unfold.

Geothermal

Labor’s Tamati Coffey holds this position and a Māori Television Curia research poll in early October shows that Tāmati Coffey is 12 points ahead of Rawiri Waititi of the Maori Party.

In one of the biggest upsets of the previous elections, Coffey beat then-Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell for the seat, and the Maori Party wants him back.

The same Maori television poll shows that 24 percent of voters in the electorate are undecided.

Waititi says there is “a game in Waiariki and the undecided vote will determine who will represent Waiariki in Wellington.”

It is a large electorate, covering part of the Eastern Cape, the Bay of Plenty, and much of the central North Island.

It comprises the two main iwi confederations in the Bay of Plenty-Central North Island area, Te Arawa and Mataatua waka.

West Coast

This is another seat that the Maori party wants to win back from Labor.

South Taranaki iwi leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is here, and it is seen as the best chance for the Maori Party to return to Parliament.

She is voting far behind Labor Party’s Adrian Rurawhe, who has held the post for two terms. It is at 38 percent, while Ngarewa-Packer is back at 20 percent.

But as in Waiariki, a large part of the electorate, 30 percent, is undecided.

The Maori Party was expelled from Parliament in the previous elections and the Labor Party won all seven Maori seats.

But Ngarewa-Packer says the party has returned with a clearer identity and transformative politics.

Takanini

This is a new electorate, established earlier this year when the Electoral Commission set the new boundaries, following the 2018 census.

Parliament’s website says it was “created before the 2020 general election as a result of population growth in the area caused by Auckland’s outward expansion. Takanini was created by attracting the population of the current Manurewa seats. and Papakura, as well as the former electorate of Hunua. “

It is ethnically diverse: 41.9% of the population is Asian, 31.9% European, Pacific peoples constitute 21% and Maori 17.2%.

The electorate candidates are Neru Leavasa from Labor, Rima Nakhle from National, Mike McCormick from Act, Elliot Ikelei from New Conservative, Georg Ngatai from Vision NZ, John Hong from the Tea Party and Mitesh Kagathra from Advance New Zealand.

Neither candidate is currently in Parliament.

Auckland Central

This electorate is home to 60,000 people, mostly young and highly educated adults of European and Asian descent.

Helen White of the Labor Party, Emma Mellow of the National Party and Chlöe Swarbrick of the Green Party are vying for the seat.

Auckland Central was once a jewel in the Labor crown; a red stronghold from the 1919 elections until retired National Party MP Nikki Kaye turned it blue in 2008 and has maintained it ever since.

But it is a close race. A Colmar Brunton Q + A poll in early October had White leading at 35%, Mellow at 30 and Swarbrick at 26.

Kaye says Swarbrick’s attempt to win the local seat is unusual for the electorate and will make election night even more interesting. The party has previously told voters to go for the Labor candidate.

With Greens polls dangerously close to the 5 percent mark, their push for Swarbrick in Auckland Central has been seen as a bid for an insurance policy to guarantee their return to Parliament.

Northern region

On paper, the Northland electorate could save New Zealand First by offering it a path to Parliament if it falls short of the party’s 5 percent vote threshold.

But the poll released in early August put the party’s candidate for the seat, Shane Jones, in third place.

National’s Matt King, the incumbent in the electorate, was at 46 percent, Labor’s Willow-Jean Prime was at 31 percent and Jones at 15 percent.

NZ First leader Winston Peters won the seat in a 2015 by-election but was ousted by King in the 2017 general election.

After the August poll, Jones told TVNZ’s Q + A that he needed to get the “political jackhammer out,” and his message to Northlanders was that if they wanted NZ First to go back to Parliament they should vote for him or for the match.

Labor is also not interested in closing a deal with its coalition partner for the job.

north

This one is interesting for one of your candidates: the controversial Advance New Zealand co-head, Billy Te Kahika.

The seat is held by Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Kelvin Davis, but Te Kahika and the Maori Party candidate, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, are vying to oust him.

Advance NZ has pinned its hopes on Billy Te Kahika winning Te Tai Tokerau to enter Parliament, as Jami-Lee Ross resigns to contest Botany’s seat.

Kapa-Kingi (Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaora) has worked in Iwi and Maori health and social services for over 30 years and most recently was part of the collective iwi response in the far north to Covid-19.

Davis has kept Te Tai Tokerau for the past two terms, after narrowly beating Hone Harawira in 2014 by just 3 percent.

But despite Te Kahika’s aspirations, the latest vote paints a different story. A Curia Research poll conducted on October 8 put their support at 1 percent. Davis was at 38%, Kapa-Kingia at 18%, and 32% of voters were undecided.

Wairarapa

Labor’s Kieran McAnulty has his sights set on National’s Mike Butterick here. It is one of the largest constituencies on the North Island, bordering Wellington in the south and stretching to the center of Hawke’s Bay in the north.

McAnulty lost to National’s Alastair Scott, who will resign, in 2017 by 2,872 votes.

It’s also territory for New Zealand First’s Ron Mark, although he got about 8,000 fewer votes than Scott in the last election.

South Hutt

Labor will push to win back Hutt South from National’s Chris Bishop.

The seat belonged to Trevor Mallard from 1993 to 2017, when he retired.

Bishop had lost to Mallard by just 709 votes in 2014 and worked hard for his victory in 2017 and has been working ever since to maintain his profile in the electorate.

Ginny Anderson was Mallard’s replacement, and this time she’s making fun of Bishop.

Nelson

In the last election, Nick Smith of National defeated Rachel Boyack of Labor by about 4,000 votes.

It’s certainly his to lose – he’s held it since 1996, and before that he held Tasman’s close seat from 1990 to 1996.

But when the boundaries of some constituencies changed earlier this year, Nelson’s were among them.

That means Brightwater, a bastion of Smith’s support, is no longer in Nelson’s electorate.

The electorate also misses Matt Lawrey of the Greens in this election: He took his party’s votes in Nelson from 1125 in 2014 to 9746 in 2017.

So if Labor continues its trend of drawing more support in Nelson (it got 41 percent of the party’s votes in 2017, down from 27 percent in 2011), it could take the seat.

If Boyack wins, she will be Nelson’s first female MP.

East Coast

This was the seat of outgoing national MP Anne Tolley, one she had held since 2005.

Tania Tapsell of National has selected Tania Tapsell as her candidate: she is a Rotorua Lakes councilor and great niece of former East Maori MP and Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives Sir Peter Tapsell.

Against him is the deputy of the Labor list Kiri Allan, which means that the race for the seat is disputed by two young Maori.

Allan lost to Tolley by about 5,000 votes in the last election.

But for the first time in 15 years, a poll commissioned by Labor put its candidate ahead of National, according to Local Democracy Reporting.

The late-September survey of 831 randomly selected residents showed Allan sitting at 40.5 percent and Tapsell a close second at 35 percent.

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