{"id":654154,"date":"2026-11-07T21:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T21:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/654154\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T21:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T21:36:11","slug":"election-2026-chris-bishop-concedes-he-is-unlikely-to-return-to-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/654154\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2026: Chris Bishop concedes he is unlikely to return to Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">He arrived at his event at O\u2019Malleys, an Irish bar and restaurant in the wealthy Lower Hutt suburb of Eastbourne where he lives, about 9.30pm, and did not take questions from media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">Bishop was behind Andersen for most of the night as the numbers rolled in, but by differing margins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">He sat with his campaign team refreshing the results on a laptop, and at one point was heard saying \u201cf***ing hell it\u2019s tight\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019ve devoted 12 years of my life to representing Hutt South as both a list MP and as an electorate MP &#8230; so it\u2019s devastating that I won\u2019t be in the next Parliament to stand up for the Hutt but I\u2019m sure that Ginny will continue to do that as the elected MP for Hutt South.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"National's Chris Bishop has lost to Labour's Ginny Andersen 17,957 votes to 17,068 on preliminary numbers.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>National&#8217;s Chris Bishop has lost to Labour&#8217;s Ginny Andersen 17,957 votes to 17,068 on preliminary numbers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">Bishop, number three on National\u2019s list and one of the most senior ministers in the coalition Government, thanked his wife, Jenna Raeburn, and said he was looking forward to spending more time with his young family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThank you very much to everyone for being here to support and once all the final results are through, we\u2019re going to have a big party, drink a lot of beer, and eat a lot of food, it\u2019s going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">Bishop first won Hutt South, which is considered to traditionally be a Labour seat, in the 2017 election, before losing it to Andersen in 2020, then reclaiming it in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/politics\/election-2026-voting-is-over-what-happens-now\/OI6CU2X3OVACVM6YKELABER5QQ\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/politics\/election-2026-voting-is-over-what-happens-now\/OI6CU2X3OVACVM6YKELABER5QQ\/\">final election results<\/a> are expected to be confirmed on Friday, November 27.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vceRuCEEWmUOvGhtp\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/ethan-manera\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/ethan-manera\/\">Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/politics\/election-2026-chris-bishop-concedes-he-is-unlikely-to-return-to-parliament\/NRF4HQT3DNBRXPM43O7BDFWNKE\/mailto:ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/politics\/election-2026-chris-bishop-concedes-he-is-unlikely-to-return-to-parliament\/NRF4HQT3DNBRXPM43O7BDFWNKE\/mailto:ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz\">ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He arrived at his event at O\u2019Malleys, an Irish bar and restaurant in the wealthy Lower Hutt suburb&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,74,48993,20217,3276,56606,256276,5506,5903,174578,692,42,49947,185,27699,71084,43,24637,1527,302684,1240,61,40,38,41,39,122],"class_list":["post-654154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2246","tag-after","tag-andersen","tag-bishop","tag-chris","tag-conceded","tag-concedes","tag-defeat","tag-election","tag-ginny","tag-he","tag-headlines","tag-hutt","tag-is","tag-labours","tag-nationals","tag-news","tag-parliament","tag-return","tag-souldestroying","tag-south","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-unlikely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654154","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=654154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}