Te Pati Māori game changer could win 2026 Election
This is the game changer…
Election 2026: Te Pāti Māori to campaign for candidate vote only
Te Pāti Māori will only campaign on winning the Māori seats – rather than the party vote – in the election as part of a “strategic” effort to bring the coalition Government “to its knees”.
The party launched its election campaign at Te Poho o Rāwiri marae in Gisborne today and revealed it would be telling voters if they vote for Te Pāti Māori’s candidate in the Māori seats, the other contenders for the electorate will most likely be able to enter Parliament via their party lists.
“Te Pāti Māori has made a deliberate and I would say very difficult decision to campaign for the candidate vote only in our Māori electorates,” co-leader Rawiri Waititi said.
This strategy has worked soundly for Te Pāti Māori in the past. During the Tāmaki Makaurau byelection, Labour MP Peeni Henare admitted he felt the race was “over” when Te Pāti Māori made the argument to voters that if they voted for Oriini Kaipara, they would also get Henare as he was already in Parliament via the party’s list.
NZ Herald
…here’s the issue.
This hard right Government of National, ACT and NZF have embarked upon an extreme anti-Treaty, anti-Māori, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary and anti-environment agenda using culture war revenge fantasies to gloss over their strangling off of the common good for their donors interests.
Because of Luxon’s weakness, Seymour and Winston have been able to pursue an extremist agenda for their reactionary voters driven by the froth of social media hate algorithms.
IF they get a second term, they will cement into place 19th Century white settler privilege and empower rednecks.
In short, this is easily the worst Government in NZ history.
So.
Defeating them in November is essential, and to do that, the Left needs to lean into every possible tactic and strategy to ensure that.
Te Pati Māori are acknowledging that reality with this brilliant MMP voting strategy.
By candidate voting TPM in the Māori electorates and giving your Party vote to either Greens or Labour, TPM are walking the talk.
This tactics creates an overhang and recycles what would be wasted TPM vote into either Labour or the Greens.
Massive demographic changes have occurred inside the Māori Electorates, with 45.6% of the Māori roll now under the age of 40!
This new youth demographic were essential in the Tamaki Makarau by-election win and their online connection means they can be mobilised in ways never possible before.
Māori voters inside the Māori electorates are the most tactical voters in NZ politics, if they adopt a candidate vote TPM and a party vote for either Green or Labour, that could be the difference between winning and losing this election.
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Bradbury, you’re an idiot!
This is absolutely brilliant. Maori roll voters have the opportunity to cast two votes that will affect the proportionality of parliament provided that they vote TPM for their electorate vote and don’t vote TPM for their party vote i.e give their party vote to the Greens or Labour.
This is the exact situation that ACT were in, in the days of polling under 5%, except that TPM gets to turbo charge the effect across 7 Maori electorates.
It remains for Maori to focus fully on the extreme need to move as close as possible to 100% from the general roll to the Maori roll to give as many Maori as possible, access to this rare opportunity of two effective votes.
The right will scream blue bloody murder but were quite happy in the days of the Epsom overhang which I believe delivered Key an extra term.
Yes, I agree with you Patrize and I believe many of our Māori whanau already know how to strategically vote. And I would like to add people are more important than money. But the current government is all about money and mostly for the sorted who already have lots of it. Also greed, blaming and selfishness is permeating in our communities and throughout our country. And our country is being divided by the current government in power.
Party vote in Maori seats has usually favored Labour anyway but Greens may appeal more to younger voters. A good move but will the Labour mandarins undermine it.
Yes, they will want to, but can they tho. They are a much diminished party with Chippy hanging on for grim death he should’ve stepped down after the insane loss at the last election.
” A game changer…” That’s exactly what our politic has become. A game. A game played by the undeserving, clueless, classless, neoliberal nouveau riche. Think the Nu Zillind hoi polloi in designer gumboots. Those who were most terminally useless and valueless are now dangling us off strings while making us dance to a modified racket more resembling a tone deaf Taylor Swift concert on a cold, dull, Tuesday afternoon in Mataura where everything smells of meat, fear and death.
Voting must be made compulsory. Fuck knows how but I do know that it must be made so. If, once we were made responsible for the ghastly cluster fuckery that’s now our Psycho Barbi politics then surely we’d be more likely show greater caution with whom we might trust then react accordingly if they betrayed us. Until then, we may as well stay in bed and take whatever is given us. Like good little slaves. Dear little slaves. Obedient little slaves. Now work harder little slaves because the nouveau riche are never riche enough.
Make voting compulsory and aggressively ban lobbying.
It’s absolutely essential that Maori voters don’t waste their “party” vote but recycle it to one of the other Left parties. Whatever the outcome, NZ cannot tolerate another three years of this abysmal, mendacious and unscrupulous mob of fraudsters who are so “self-absorbed”, not because they are better people, but because they have MONEY! Surely you have to be joking? Money is a material asset, NOT an attribute. It clearly doesn’t make you a nicer or more caring, empathetic person, so don’t kid yourselves that it does. Wealth will NEVER be more important than Moral Values! How can’t you see that? If you are hell-bent on destroying, or selling off our lovely NZ, then just keep on your one-eyed Me/Me/Me track, but don’t complain when you become under the control of those to whom you have given this control! This CoC don’t care about the long-term effects; most are simply there for what they personally can get out of it now and to hell with NZ and those who genuinely love it!!! Before you vote 7/11, ‘think’ very carefully about the outcome!
TPM has no choice. Look at the polls, nobody wants them. Chances are they won’t even win one seat, that’s how unhinged TPM is.
you are sounding nervous Jonzie
TPM will win seats, how many I’m not exactly sure but the mainstream media always seems to paint them in a negative light despite many years of Māori being involved in politics. I still believe the mainstream media don’t understand us as a people.
p.s please don’t say we are homogenous if you look at our voting patterns the majority swing to the left.
You are correct Jonzie – 2% support for TPM…TPM might win 3 to 4 seats
We will see they might win 3-4 Maori electoral seats and 2 % of the party vote.
So, perhaps 4 to 5 seats in total – this includes the overhang cause by the 2% party vote…not the 7 to 8 seats TPM is suggesting
You are correct .Hipkins certainly does not want them in his Coalition he was very reluctant to endorse even the Greens as partners on the National radio. .He wants to rule on his own so they can achieve great things like the last time .
They haven’t got a hope in hell of governing on their own thank goodness. TOP have made it even more certain. But Hipkins and Labour are lacklustre. I haven’t seen the list of bills they will not reverse despite being outraged at the time these bills passed. Someone said they are in talks with the CTU over the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 which abruptly halted and discontinued 33 active pay equity claims (affecting roughly 150,000 workers in female-dominated industries) and restricted how like-minded or similar male-dominated jobs can be used to prove gender-based pay undervaluation.
In talks, what does that mean, yeah nah!
But then it could be much much worse than Hipkins we could get Luxon et al again.
Well Jonzie that just ain’t true. There is no doubt that the Greens will want them in government as an ally and let’s face it TPM and the Greens are likely to work as a block and tell Labour what they want. Hipkins keeps saying the same old junk about him now allowing any other taxes to come in. He ultimately will not have a choice no matter what he says right now. I simply do not think they will ever get the opportunity to govern alone.