Mt Albert by-election results
(Preliminary results, Source)
Nobody believed Nats would actually win this seat, but last night's result was still a surprise for me. Shearer did not just win the seat, but with a huge 63%:17% margin. Percentage wise, Shearer beat his predecessor, former PM Helen Clark and even Labour's performance in safe seats like Mangere.
However, this is not a serious set back for National as well. First Mt Albert has always been a red seat, secondly, the turnout was less than 50%, it appears that many right wing votes chose not bother to vote, as the result is inevitable. Lee's blunder to blunder performance and media stir up also contributed to this. If this was a general election, I believe the result would be quite different, Labour would still win, but with a smaller margin.
There were only two races last night, first was the race between Melissa Lee and Green's Russel Norman. As previous polls suggested, Green may have chance to beat National, so I was really wondering whether Mt Albert can humiliate National further by place Lee on the third place. However, it didn't happen though, but the margin between the two is very small, about 5%.
Another surprise race emerged from last night's result, the race between United Future's former deputy leader, Judy Turner, and candidates from other small parties. Although Turner herself is not in the parliament, but as a member of a parliamentary party, being beaten by Bill and Ben and Legalise Cannabis should be something she didn't expect.
