{"id":72809,"date":"2025-10-11T22:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/72809\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T22:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T22:50:09","slug":"local-elections-2025-the-new-zealand-mayoral-races-going-down-to-the-wire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/72809\/","title":{"rendered":"Local elections 2025: The New Zealand mayoral races going down to the wire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Similarly, at the Whang\u0101rei District Council, incumbent Vince Cocurullo has just a 67-vote lead over Ken Couper. The council\u2019s website reported they are on 9841 and 9774, respectively. <\/p>\n

In Buller, according to Electionz.com, just 135 votes separate Chris Russell on 1250, and Jamie Cleine, who has 1115 votes so far. <\/p>\n

Over at Westland District Council, front-runner businesswoman Jacquie Grant has amassed 1292 votes, less than 100 more than the second-highest candidate, incumbent Mayor Helen Lash.<\/p>\n

\"VinceVince Cocurullo.<\/p>\n

Gary Petley, on 1789 votes, is leading the pack to become South Waikato District Council mayor, but he\u2019s closely followed by Zed Latinovic on 1676.<\/p>\n

In Masterton, just 202 votes separate mayoral candidates Bex Johnson on 2204 and Stella Lennox, who has 2002.<\/p>\n

Finally, in Waimate, Craig Rowley is leading the fight for mayor with 912 votes, followed closely by Sharyn Cain on 836. <\/p>\n

\"RotoruaRotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell pictured at the Rotorua Business Awards after being re-elected yesterday to lead the city for another term in the top job. Photo \/ Alan Gibson<\/p>\n

Many centres, including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Rotorua had decisive votes, electing Wayne Brown, former Labour Party leader Andrew Little<\/a>, Phil Mauger, and Tania Tapsell respectively. <\/p>\n

Gore Mayor Ben Bell was also re-elected<\/a> for a second term despite a tumultuous past three years in which district councillors and the council chief executive called for him to step down and issued a vote of no confidence.<\/p>\n

\"GoreGore District Mayor Ben Bell (left) with Stewart MacDonell (right). Photo \/ Sandy Eggleston<\/p>\n

Bell made history as the district\u2019s youngest ever mayor in October 2022 when he was voted into power at the age of 23, beating six-term incumbent Tracy Hicks by just eight votes.<\/p>\n

However, the country\u2019s longest-serving mayor, Wayne Guppy, has missed out on a ninth term as Upper Hutt\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n

Guppy, 71, was first elected mayor in 2001, after serving one term as a councillor, and has been in office for 24 years.<\/p>\n

In provisional votes with 85% counted, Guppy had been beaten by Peri Zee, who campaigned on better transport, a vibrant city centre and more health facilities.<\/p>\n

Zee received 4199 votes to Guppy\u2019s 3200.<\/p>\n

\"WayneWayne Guppy. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Similarly, at the Whang\u0101rei District Council, incumbent Vince Cocurullo has just a 67-vote lead over Ken Couper. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[836,74,6097,7797,22220,56662,440,57334,21168,117,111,43,139,69,30305,18481,57331,16511,13120,4499,544,223,5654,61,57333,57332,7246,6123,19658,102,80],"class_list":["post-72809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-836","tag-after","tag-down","tag-elections","tag-going","tag-landslide","tag-local","tag-margins","tag-mayoral","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-polish","tag-politicians","tag-prosecco","tag-races","tag-remain","tag-small","tag-some","tag-the","tag-tight","tag-to","tag-uncomfortably","tag-victories","tag-votes","tag-while","tag-wire","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72809","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=72809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}