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Chlöe Swarbrick is “happy” to have secured the first Green Party electorate seat in the elections in a surprising victory in Auckland Central.
Swarbrick, 26, beat out her closest rival, Labor Helen White, who polls predicted would take the seat, by just a few hundred votes.
National’s Emma Mellow came third in the race.
RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick said the victory was historic.
When asked how he felt about the win, Swarbrick replied, “How cool is that?”
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RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Greens MP Chlöe Swarbrick arrives for election night with her family. He stops to hug his grandmother at the door.
She said that higher voter turnout, particularly among youth, was encouraging, but attributed her success to a successful local campaign.
She said: “We are excited and this shows you what a grassroots campaign can accomplish.
“We don’t owe it to anyone, except the strong and massive grassroots campaign, which had more than 100 registered volunteers.”
Ricky Wilson / Stuff
Labor Helen White appears to have finished second in the Auckland Central race.
Swarbrick said she was confident she helped boost the party’s vote along the way and said the party’s “two-tick campaign” had been “phenomenal.”
“I feel immense gratitude for the privilege people have given me to represent them. We have put together a campaign and we have achieved things that no one thought possible, and this is what the grassroots means to me. That’s why I’m in politics, ”he said.
Swarbrick replaces Nikki Kaye of National, who announced that she would be retiring from politics a few weeks before the election.
His victory means that the Green Party will return to Parliament even if it falls below five percent in the party’s vote.
RICKY WILSON
Emma Mellow, who finished third in the race, took over as the national candidate for Auckland Central after Nikki Kaye retired from politics.
Swarbrick made history as the youngest MP to enter Parliament in 42 years when she was elected as an MP from the Greens list in the 2017 elections.
He ran for mayor of Auckland at just 22 years old, coming in third, before joining the Green Party in 2016.
Before entering the political arena, Swarbrick held various jobs, including four years volunteering at 95bFM as a journalist and radio host.
Swarbrick has been a spokesperson for the Green Party on education (including tertiary education), home affairs, drug law reform, local government, arts heritage and culture, small businesses, broadcasting, and youth.
Other canidates
All three women were well ahead of contenders from smaller parties.
Others vying for the seat were Tuariki Delamere of the Opportunities Party (TOP), a former immigration minister and New Zealand’s first MP from 1996 to 1999.
Dominic Hoffman Dervan represented the TEA Party, while New Zealand first elected Jenny Marcoft, an MP who had served a term in the House.
Felix Poole, a fourth-year student at the University of Auckland studying law and communications, was the ACT candidate.
Joshua Love and Chris Sadler ran as independent candidates, Kevin Stitt was the New Conservative nominee, independent candidate Joshua Love, and attorney and attorney Vernon Tava represented Sustainable New Zealand.
