Palmerston North

The 2023 result

In 2023, Tangi Utikere (Labour) won Palmerston North by 3,087 votes over Ankit Bansal (National). The candidate vote split Labour 43.8% to National 35.0%, a margin of 8.8 points. Its boundaries have changed for 2026, so the 2026 seat isn't exactly the same area that voted in 2023.

The 2023 winner, Tangi Utikere, is standing again.

On the party vote, National led with 34.0%, ahead of Labour on 31.5%. That's a split: voters gave the seat to Labour but more of their party votes to National, so the local candidate's own pull matters.

Worth knowing: Notional margin cut from 8.8% to 3.5% by boundary change.

What it would take to change hands

On the 2026 boundaries, the 2023 votes would put Labour 3.5 points ahead of National (an estimate by The Tally Room). National would need a swing of about 1.8 points from Labour to take it: each point that moves from one to the other closes the gap by two.

Since 2023, the current poll average has National down 10.0 points on the party vote and Labour up 1.0. If three-quarters of that change carried through to the candidate vote here (the calculator's default), Labour would hold it by about 11.7 points.

A simple uniform-swing illustration, not a forecast: local candidates, tactical voting and the polls' margins of error all matter. About the poll average.