The Electoral Commission confirmed that 9377 ordinary votes were counted on election night, according to a preliminary count. There are still an estimated 2621 special votes to be counted, expected to account for around 21.8% of total votes. <\/p>\n
Early results from the by-election had former broadcaster Kaipara in a commanding lead.<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori’s candidate held 64% of the vote with around a 2900 vote lead over her Labour rival, who is already a party list MP in Parliament. <\/p>\n
Eighty-four polling booths were open on Saturday from 9am until 7pm to collect the last of the votes. An estimated 60% of votes were cast in advance, excluding special votes.<\/p>\n
But voter turnout in the contest remained low. <\/p>\n
At 4.30pm yesterday, the Electoral Commission estimated turnout at 27.1% of the 44,269 enrolled. That compares with 35.9% turnout at the Port Waikato by-election and 31.4% at the Hamilton West by-election.<\/p>\n
Reaction to a big win for Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori<\/p>\n
Speaking to Q+A today, Political Editor Maiki Sherman said that the margin between Kaipara and Henare came as a shock to those gathered at Labour’s election night event. <\/p>\n
“She really dominated him in those results. I was with the Labour Party last night. They were hurt by those results. They were shocked by those results,” she said. <\/p>\n
“[Peeni Henare] was hurting last night. You could see, that was clear … Willie Jackson was there. He was shocked by the results.”<\/p>\n
Multiple reporters, including from 1News, were not allowed to report from inside Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori’s election night event yesterday.<\/p>\n
Last day of polling wasn\u2019t\u00a0helped by spring showers and cool winds across the city.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori had been key to highly-visible campaigners against the coalition, including last year’s national hikoi against the Treaty Principles Bill, Sherman said. <\/p>\n
She added that Kaipara represented a unique kind of authenticity that her party had seized on in its messaging to voters, often through social media. <\/p>\n
Henare and Kaipara were considered front-runners in the by-election triggered by the death of Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP, Takutai Tarsh Kemp. <\/p>\n
High-profile candidate wins seat<\/p>\n
In joining the race, Kaipara made a high-profile entry into politics after spending over a decade as a journalist and broadcaster. Henare held the T\u0101maki Makaurau seat between 2014 and 2023 until Kemp ousted him by a margin of just 42 votes.<\/p>\n
![\"Peeni](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757208248_0_peeni-henare-QE5DX2ODMRBGXGVU5B2DU7XOVE.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Peeni Henare. (Source: Photosport)<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission confirmed it was looking into a social media post by Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP Takuta Ferris on Saturday morning, the last day of polling in the by-election.<\/p>\n
Ferris posted a photograph of himself holding a punnet of what appeared to be meat-loaded fries, with words urging people to vote. <\/p>\n
He was pictured wearing a Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori-branded puffer jacket.<\/p>\n
The Ferris post was forwarded to the Electoral Commission, who responded to a tweet: “Kia ora, thanks for letting us know. We’re looking into it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori’s Oriini Kaipara will become the next MP for T\u0101maki Makaurau after handily winning yesterday’s by-election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,8028,4432,111,43,139,69,135,8027],"class_list":{"0":"post-7067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-labour-party","10":"tag-maori-issues","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-te-pati-maori"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067","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=7067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}