Ben McNulty’s vote tally on course to break records

Tuesday, 14 October 2025

Ben McNulty puts securing his record-breaking number of votes and big margin over his rivals down to communication.

It appears he has secured the highest single number of votes for a ward councillor and the biggest margin over his rivals since the single-transferable voting system came in.

“I was talking to my wife [and said] ‘this is wild’. I kind of couldn’t believe the numbers as they came through,” the Labour councillor and Takapū/Northern ward councillor said.

He won in the first iteration of the progress results with 6256 votes. His nearest rival then was Tony Randle on 1651. By Monday afternoon McNulty’s tally had risen to 8299 and Randle’s 4071 – a margin of 4228.

They are certainly the best numbers since accessible Wellington City Council numbers go back to in 2016 and McNulty understood the best since 2004 when the single transferable voting system came in.

Tamatha Paul in 2022 took the previous record in the Pukehīnau/Lambton ward with 5206 in the final tally versus Nicola Young’s 3209 – a 1997 margin.

Quite how the scorecard will look come the final results, including specials, later in the week, will show the true margin. But, for now, McNulty who is planning to make his second term his last, is comfortably, unbeatably in pole position.

Quite why each of those 6256 in the Takapū/Northern ward gave their first preference to McNulty will come down to a little more than 6000 reasons but McNulty – a first time councillor three years ago – puts it down to communication.

The way he would, for example, post a social video media about an ongoing contentious issue – the airport share sale for example – explaining the issue in a a largely apolitical way people could understand, and explaining the reason for his stance.

“I also shit-post from time to time,” he said. “People will see through it if it is a veneer.”

Like Paul – who would go on to Parliament and now has 61,000-plus Instagram followers – McNulty attributed his regular social media posts. But it was also good old-fashion constituency work and getting to know the people, he said.

The margin leads to one question – will he put his name forward to fellow Labour and new mayor Andrew Little as deputy? It is a position that comes with more pay, more profile but can also be a poisoned chalice.

He insisted it was a conversation he had not yet had with Little. He swore that he hadn’t even entertained the idea himself and was happy to help in “whatever” capacity.

“I genuinely haven’t allowed myself to think about it,” he said.

Paul, the now-runner-up in the ward vote stakes, was magnanimous in defeat.

“A well-deserved win for Ben,” she said.

“He was active all term on some pretty big issues and was very visible in the election on platforms like Reddit and Tik Tok which are big for younger voters.“