Election 2023: National Party goes for one last push in Hawke’s Bay before the big day

Christopher Luxon arrived to a crowd of supporters in Napier on Wednesday evening during one last election push in the region before the big day. Photo / Paul Taylor

National leader Christopher Luxon had a hectic schedule to keep as his party’s final push in Hawke’s Bay before election day came and went.

National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis was also in Hawke’s Bay on Thursday morning alongside local candidates Katie Nimon (Napier) and Catherine Wedd (Tukituki).

Luxon travelled to Hawke’s Bay last night aboard National’s campaign bus, accompanied by Willis.

He was met by a sea of blue - including party devotees, police and “Health Forum” placard-bearers representing those detrimentally impacted by Covid-19 vaccines - outside the Hawke’s Bay Club on Marine Parade.

He left the rest of the campaigning to Willis as he travelled to Auckland for the last televised leaders’ debate on Thursday evening.

Sign-waving on a Havelock North roundabout, the party received plenty of support from commuters who weren’t afraid to test out their horns.

Not all were supportive - people in one car stopped to flip off sign wavers.

One man in a high-vis vest riding a bike flew past and used his hand to knock two signs out of a startled party member’s hands and on to the road, where they were run over a few times before being picked up.

National’s Napier candidate Katie Nimon put on a show as the party’s campaign bus travelled through Hawke’s Bay.

Nimon, egged on by Willis, sang along with mic in hand to the Spice Girls’ Wannabe.

She made a small change to the lyrics, instead singing: “I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha), I wanna really, really, really wanna party vote National.”

Her performance encouraged slightly less in-tune members of the Young Nationals to sing along to The Killers’ Mr Brightside.

Both the Tukituki and Napier electorates were won by Labour in 2020, but were among the seats that National had a chance of flipping.

Advance voting statistics show the turnout to be down by more than 40 per cent at the same stage of the 2020 race.

By Tuesday night, 843,044 people had returned their papers nationwide, compared with 1,415,041 when three days of advance voting remained last time out.