Comedian Tom Sainsbury has thrown his hat into the Auckland mayoral race

Saturday, 17 August 2019

Comedian Tom Sainsbury is officially running for the Auckland mayoralty, up against veteran politicians such as Phil Goff and John Tamihere.

Although Tom's name is down on the list of 21 mayoral hopefuls, he says his alter-ego Fiona is the one actually running to be Auckland's mayor.

Sainsbury has thousands of followers for his social media videos, where he uses the Snapchat face swap filter to take on the persona of politicians and other characters.

In a video posted on Saturday, the morning after the official list of Auckland mayoral candidates was released, he appeared as 'Fiona' and told fans she had 'made a huge mistake'.

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'To celebrate getting through Dry July, on August the 1st I decided to get drunk on various bubbles', Fiona said.

'What happened was, I was talking with some girlfriends and decided to run for mayor of Auckland.

'It seemed like a very good idea at the time.'

Sainsbury could not be reached for comment on Saturday, but he is expected to talk to media later this weekend.

His satirical impersonations of politicians such as Paula Bennett have attracted national attention in the past.

His videos have even been picked up by Bennett herself, who impersonated the impersonator with her 'besties', Amy Adams, Nikki Kaye and Maggie Barry.