East Coast preliminary results:
- VOTES COUNTED: 100 per cent
- WINNING CANDIDATE: Dana Kirkpatrick, 14,971
- 2ND CANDIDATE: Tāmati Coffey, 11,833
- 3RD CANDIDATE: Craig Sinclair, 2195
- MARGIN: 3148
- PARTY VOTE: National Party 38.1 per cent
- 2ND PARTY: Labour Party 29.2 per cent
The East Coast electorate is once again blue after National candidate Dana Kirkpatrick convincingly won the seat.
Kirkpatrick told the Rotorua Daily Post today she was confident, but always “wary of expecting the win”.
She said given Labour’s big win at the 2020 election, by a margin of more than 4600 votes, her National camp was “conscious we had ground to make up”.