Te Ururoa Flavell on election night. Photograph by Stephen Parker
Rotorua has spoken.
Todd McClay will be our electorate MP for the next three years.
It was always going to be an interesting race - from the moment television celebrity Tamati Coffey announced his intention to stand for Labour against the National Party incumbent.
Both candidates have strong personalities and ran powerful and tireless campaigns.
And undoubtedly Mr McClay's record as local MP played a part in his success.
But it's also clear Rotorua is a strongly National electorate.
National received more than 16,000 party votes, nearly 10,000 more than Labour.
It was a similar gap in 2011, with similar results. Also taking into account boundary changes which saw true blue Te Puke come into the Rotorua electorate and Labour-supporting Kawerau leave it, Labour was always going to find it a tough race, even without internal party ructions damaging their campaign.
The other big winners in our region are New Zealand First's Fletcher Tabuteau and Maori Party leader Te Ururoa Flavell.
Mr Tabuteau's years of dedication to his party have paid off as he enters Parliament as a list MP, and Rotorua can only be better off with two MPs from this electorate.
His championing of his party also helped them to a strong party vote in Rotorua - with twice the votes of the Green Party.
It was a night of mixed fortunes for Mr Flavell on Saturday.
He won his Waiariki seat and kept his party alive, but saw the Maori Party's other Maori seats go to Labour.
Now, he faces the prospect of becoming Maori Affairs Minister, and with the likelihood of Mr McClay retaining a ministerial portfolio we could well end up with not only three Rotorua MPs from three parties, but two of them in very important positions of power.
Rotorua has spoken - we look forward to seeing what our representatives can do for us.
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