Can Stuart Nash win Napier for NZ First?
Monday, 25 May 2026
ANALYSIS: Stuart Nash is back.
The former Labour Minister, forced out of government near the last election, has confirmed he will stand for NZ First in his old stomping ground of Napier. If he wins the seat for NZ First it would set him up very well for power within the party ‒ no other NZ First MP has won a seat since the 2015 Northland by-election.
Nash won Napier in three elections running and often outperformed Labour’s party vote in the seat. He was a strong fund raiser in the seat and his victory in 2014 was a rare bright spot for Labour on a very poor election night. So will that record of out-performance send him back into the seat in 2026?
Let’s take a look at the numbers.
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Nash ran for Labour in Napier in 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2020. While he lost in 2011 to National’s incumbent Chris Tremain he put up very respectable numbers in the candidate vote ‒ about 3700 votes or 37% higher than Labour’s party vote in the electorate.
In 2014 he won the seat with almost 6000 more candidate votes than Labour’s pitiful party vote ‒ a 61% overperformance.
As Labour’s overall vote improved he would never quite match this performance ‒ he did 41% better (again around 6000 votes) than the party in 2017 and basically matched its result in 2020, although it should be remembered here that Labour was doing so well in 2020 nationally that outperforming it was almost impossible.
All told it appears Nash the man was considerably talented at setting himself apart from his wider party and convincing people who were backing others in the party vote to give him their candidate vote. Better by about 6000 votes.
So how will this track in 2026?
Napier is handily one of the most bellwether seats in the country, with its party vote closely tracking the national total. In fact in 2023, it matched the national party vote better than any other seat.
That means we have a pretty solid basis for predicting how well NZ First might do in the party vote.
Going back 15 years, NZ First’s party vote in the electorate is very similar to its national vote. So if we predict that NZ First’s party vote roughly matches its polling right now about 12%, it will probably get about 12% of the party vote in Napier too.
If Nash then outperforms that vote by as much as he did in 2014 and 2017 ‒ about 6000 votes - and we assume there are broadly as many candidates votes as there were in 2023, Nash gets very close to 10,000 candidate votes.
Will that be enough?
Well it really depends where those extra votes come from and how well the other two big players in the race will do ‒ incumbent National MP Katie Nimon and Labour candidate Dr Alex Hedley.
Incumbents usually have a bit of an advantage in seats, but Labour is also polling substantially ahead of National in most polls. If we assume that Napier broadly follows the national trend ‒ as it usually does ‒ a Labour candidate win would have been the most likely outcome, ahead of Nash’s entry into the race.
But if Nash is outperforming NZ First, those votes have to come from somewhere. The question will be whether they are coming from people otherwise party voting Labour or otherwise party voting National.
Given NZ First is in power with National and loudly proclaiming that it will never go with Labour again, it seems likely that the majority of split votes for Nash are more likely to come from National than Labour. Given Labour is also ahead (currently) in the party vote, that would suggest that Nash’s overperformance would not quite be enough to beat the Labour candidate, and he would instead split the right-wing vote.
But that conclusion is fairly contestable. You could also argue that as a former Labour stalwart Nash will be able to tap into his former voter base on the left in Napier, beating a diminished National candidate who is brought low by her party’s overall retreat nationally.
And even if Nash loses in Napier, he will likely be on his way back to Parliament anyway. An NZ First spokesperson confirmed on Monday morning that Nash will be on the party list, which is the way every other current NZ First MP made it to Parliament this time. The real challenge Nash will face might not be winning over Napier ‒ but winning over the party he has joined.