Here's what we know about the 3,145 candidates running in local elections

The Spinoff

a day ago

There's an abundance of Johns, Mikes and Davids, plus other scintillating statistics about the people vying for your vote.
Nominations have closed, hoardings have popped up on roadsides and candidates are out and about, actively seeking your vote: it's officially local elections season. But what do we know about the 3,145 individuals running for 1,639 vacancies in 607 elections across 77 councils (some of them multiple times)? We trawled through the data – which LGNZ handily pulled from nomination forms into a couple of spreadsheets – and here's what we found.
There are so many Johns, Mikes and Davids
Scroll through alllllll the people standing in this year's local elections and some names will keep cropping up. John, Michael/Mike and David/Dave are the most popular names. While we don't have demographic details of candidates like age and ethnicity, Department of Internal Affairs data on baby names gives us an idea: these were among the most common names for boys born in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s, so it's likely many of these candidates are baby boomers and older gen Xers.
The same mostly holds true for women, although there are fewer women standing, and thus lower counts for their names overall. Karen was one of the most popular names for girls in the 1950s and 60s. However, Sarah was at its peak in the 1970s and 80s, and Rachel became popular in the late 70s. (Click the arrow at the top of the graph to show women's names.)
This tracks with LGNZ's elected member census from 2022, which found that almost half of the men elected to local government were 61 and older (49%), while the percentage of women over the age of 61 was 27%.
Live in the North Island? You'll probably have a Māori ward referendum
The legislation that allows councils to have Māori wards for voters on the Māori roll has existed since 2001. However, many councils added Māori wards in 2022, when the Labour government removed a requirement for a binding referendum to be held if a petition signed by 5% of the region's population challenged the establishment of one. While all councils that have a Māori ward will still have that seat in the 2025-2028 term, the majority of those councils will have to hold a referendum on whether to keep or abolish it after that, as the current government has reinstated a referendum requirement.
There's a clear geographical trend to councils with Māori wards, with the majority of councils in the North Island adopting them – but not in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Some councils have Māori representation but don't need to hold referendums. Wairoa District Council, Ōpōtoki District Council and Waikato Regional Council have already held referendums for their Māori wards that received majority support. Bay of Plenty Regional Council has a piece of local legislation that created its Māori ward, so it exists under a different law and doesn't need to have a referendum. Environment Canterbury, another regional council, has Māori representation through appointees, rather than a vote, so it doesn't need to hold a referendum either.
Only one mayor in the country has lasted eight terms – and he wants another
Wayne Guppy, mayor of Upper Hutt, was first elected to the position in 2001. That means he's been mayor long enough that people who weren't even born when he first received the mayoral chains are now old enough to vote for him.
However, the majority of mayoral candidates standing for re-election have completed only one term, and there are almost as many mayoral elections where the incumbent is not seeking re-election. Reasons for not standing again vary; Mackenzie District Council mayor Anne Munro is stepping down due to a cancer diagnosis, while Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry said he is ready for a fresh start outside of local politics. The majority of elections with no incumbent are in the North Island, with only four of 23 elections in the South Island having no existing mayor standing.
Ranked choice voting is much less common than first past the post
While central government elections use the MMP system, the many elections for local bodies make things more complicated. Instead of just a party vote and an electorate vote, you will have a mayoral vote and a vote for local councillor(s); many places also have community or local boards, licensing trusts and regional councils too.
Most local elections use first-past-the-post voting, meaning the winner is the person who gets the most votes. Some elections use ' single transferable vote ' systems, where you rank candidates based on how much you want them to win. If your first-ranked candidate doesn't get enough votes, your vote then passes to your second-ranked candidate and so on, meaning you still have a say even if your preference isn't met. Wellington and Dunedin are the biggest cities that have adopted this method. Otago Regional Council and Whangārei District Council will be holding their first STV elections in 2025.
Big cities have fewer candidates to population (but there's a catch)
In central government elections, there are about 69,875 people in each electorate, represented by one MP, with slightly more (74,367) for Māori electorates. Counting list MPs, there are about 43,000 people per MP.
Comparing this ratio to local government elections shows how much easier it is for people who are keen to represent their community to be elected. Auckland has the highest ratio of people:candidates, at one candidate for every 3,800 people, while the Chatham Islands has the smallest at 1:45. Bigger cities have more people to candidates – but bigger cities often have more choice, because more people choose to run. You also get more options of people to vote for: in Auckland, most people get to vote for a mayor, one or two councillors on the governing body and local board members, while in a smaller area like Westland you might just get to vote for one ward councillor and one mayoral candidate.
These statistics conceal how despite the greater rate of representation, seats in smaller councils have less competition overall, especially for more minor positions like community boards. Part of the argument for merging councils is that while there might be some loss to how represented citizens are, bigger councils have bigger budgets (including for paying elected members) and there might therefore be more and better candidates as a result.
Candidate priorities: rates, community and choice
Some candidates submit affiliations with their nomination, saying what they stand for, or naming the ticket they represent. The most common words in these slogans reveal some obvious trends. The Labour-affiliated ticket 'The People's Choice', in Christchurch, clearly had its candidates coordinating to all have the same information on their nominations. Other party presences in local politics pop up too, like 'Green', 'Act' and direct 'Labour' candidates.
There were the exact same number of 'our' and 'you/your' pronouns in slogans, while there was only one instance of 'my', in the phrase 'your life is my life' from a candidate in Rolleston. 'Lower', unsurprisingly, was universally paired with 'rates'.
For this analysis, we included 'for' 'your' 'our', but not 'the' or 'a', with the logic that the preposition 'for' contains more information about what a candidate believes than the article 'the'.