National’s Katie Nimon has swept aside Labour’s nine-year dominance of Napier under Stuart Nash, beating Labour’s Mark Hutchinson by a significant margin.
With just the special votes to come, Nimon had an 8100 vote margin on Sunday morning.
Political newcomer Hutchinson was thrust into the race after Nash was removed from Cabinet and decided not to seek re-election.
It proved a bridge too far, and at number 60 on the party list, he won’t gain a seat in Parliament.
Nash won the seat against Nimon by a margin of 5856 votes in the 2020 election, but the sign’s of Nimon’s potential were there given his margin was cut during what was a red wave in the region under Labour and Jacinda Ardern.
Nimon, ranked at number 22 on the National Party list, would have made it without winning the seat.
Despite this, she made it abundantly clear that her preference was not to be a list MP but to represent the people of her electorate.
“That is the job that is the constituency representative for Napier. You don’t get two. List MPs end up with jobs all around the country,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today in August.
“I want to make sure I am representing the electorate. That is what I am here to do.”
Most other candidates for the seat representing the minor parties had previously made it clear they were gunning for the party vote, such as ACT’s Pawel Milewski, NZ First’s Lawrence Turnbull and Julienne Dickey for the Green Party.
Judging by the poll numbers and the candidates’ list positions, none of the other Napier candidates will claim a seat in Parliament.
FULL RESULTS - NAPIER:
DICKEY, Julienne (Greens) 1655
HUTCHINSON, Mark (Labour) 10693
LANGFORD, Martin (Democracy NZ) 672
MILEWSKI, Pawel (ACT) 999
NIMON, Katie (National) 18793
SMITH, John Clive (Independent) 178
TURNBULL, Laurie (NZ First) 1480
Paunovic moved to Havelock North with her family from Croatia seven years ago.