Her earlier updates charted the campaign\u2019s growth. After one of the first posts, she reported 77,000 views, more than 2,000 interactions and 254 click-throughs to www.vote.nz in less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Four days into the campaign, Waikato said click-throughs had passed 2,000. By July 23, she put the number at more than 3,500.<\/p>\n
She says the campaign\u2019s effect extends beyond clicks, sparking conversations between parents and children, grandparents and mokopuna, group chats, wh\u0101nau chats and workplaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ranked 13th on the Green Party\u2019s final list, she has a credible route into Parliament even if she fails to win from the Waiariki electorate. Recent polling has projected between 13 and 17 Green MPs, placing Waikato anywhere from the threshold of Parliament to comfortably inside it.<\/p>\n
The Tauranga-based lawyer became a Green candidate late last year after gaining a national profile through campaigns opposing the Treaty Principles Bill and Regulatory Standards Bill. <\/p>\n
She also represented Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori before Parliament\u2019s privileges committee over the haka performed in the debating chamber.<\/p>\n
Waikato first floated the enrolment idea a day before posting the red-bikini photograph.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf blatant racism and division are valid election strategies, what about thirst traps?\u201d she wrote on July 17.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsking for a friend. Calm down, I\u2019m only joking. Or am I.\u201d<\/p>\n
She later described it as a low-budget attempt to compete with political organisations able to pay to dominate social-media feeds.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can we get people\u2019s attention in the never-ending slop of the algorithm without any billionaire backers who pay to saturate your feeds with right-wing AI slop?\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Since its launch, the joke has developed into a rolling series featuring what Waikato calls \u201cbikini baddies\u201d and \u201cbuff bros\u201d.<\/p>\n
The cast has included fitness models, athletes, entrepreneurs and a firefighter and gym owner, with each post carrying the same instruction: go to Vote.nz, enrol, check your details or consider switching between the general and M\u0101ori rolls.<\/p>\n
![\"Waikato](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a6ab6e4e-505a-43b2-bff3-615c91d07ed8-edited-1785110987323.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Her recruit Nick Read, whom Waikato introduced on July 26, is a firefighter, athlete, gym owner and father.<\/p>\n
\u201cNick is a mate of mine who’s always supportive of other people succeeding, so it wasn’t hard to get him to support the kaupapa of getting our rangatahi to enrol so they can be successful in having their vote counted on the 7th of November.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waikato has also featured Zeisha, whom she described as Mrs World 2026 and Mrs Globe New Zealand, as well as a mother, DJ, singer, producer, writer and fellow breast-cancer survivor.<\/p>\n
Another participant, Manaia Peina, was introduced as a young entrepreneur and fitness model who was \u201chiiiiigh on the hit list\u201d when Waikato began approaching friends from her gym and CrossFit circles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome to the baddie brigade babygirrrrl,\u201d Waikato wrote.<\/p>\n
The captions are part civic reminder, part thirst-trap patter. \u201cGo to vote.nz and get it done now. Or no baddies for you,\u201d one post reads.<\/p>\n
In another post, Waikato told women waiting for male participants that she had secured \u201csome t\u0101ne M\u0101ori talent\u201d, but would not \u201cdish them up\u201d until they persuaded five people to enrol.<\/p>\n
Her use of a red bikini prompted questions about whether the colour signalled support for another political party.<\/p>\n
Waikato responded with a lesson in M\u0101ori symbolism, describing red as a sacred colour associated with Hine-ahu-one, blood, tapu and the feminine principle.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo Hone-come-lately political party owns this colour,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re upset about what colour I\u2019m wearing instead of focusing on the insane amount of mahi we have to do to enrol people before the cut-off, you\u2019re probably on the wrong page.\u201d<\/p>\n
The controversy, she argued, was itself proof that the campaign was working.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that I got your attention with the red bikini demonstrates the effectiveness of the campaign already.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waikato has also been explicit about the political motivation behind the enrolment drive.<\/p>\n
She believes changes affecting enrolment on election day will disproportionately affect M\u0101ori, Pasifika, young voters and other minorities who may leave registration until the last moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government is actively trying to stop people voting so they can rig this election,\u201d she wrote in one post.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m doing everything in my power to torpedo their evil plan. With the power of my sensational mana w\u0101hine baddies. In their kinis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The campaign was initially conceived as a short burst, but Waikato says the enrolment numbers persuaded her to continue until the October 25 deadline.<\/p>\n
She has also defended the photographs against criticism that they trivialise voting or objectify the people involved.<\/p>\n
In one post, Waikato shared a message from a person who said the campaign helped them feel \u201cM\u0101ori enough\u201d to move to the M\u0101ori roll.<\/p>\n
Waikato said she understood that uncertainty from her own experience of growing up part-M\u0101ori and being teased after being placed in a M\u0101ori-language environment at the age of nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing our beautiful, different strong mana wahine and mana t\u0101ne inspires me,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
For everyone else, her message remains less delicate: enrol first, and the baddies will follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Green Party candidate is trying to lure young men onto the electoral roll with a campaign built…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[112585,69543,111,43,139,69,57068,268115,268116,268117],"class_list":["post-545773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-election-2026","tag-green-party","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rawiri-waititi","tag-tania-waikato","tag-voter-enrolment","tag-waiaraki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}