Waikanae’s Tim Costley has withheld a challenge from newcomer Sophie Handford (Labour) in a hotly contested race for the new electorate of Kāpiti which runs from Ōtaki to the northern suburbs of Porirua City.
Costley came into the election as the sitting MP for Ōtaki which he won by 6271 votes in 2023.
In the current election the race was much closer but Costley led from the out set and the margin steadily increased as the night wore on. With 98.4% of the vote in Costley had an unassailable lead of 2103 votes.
Handford rang Costley to concede and said she congratulated him on the result.
“Thank you to every one of our supporters, our incredible volunteers, and everyone who gave me and Labour their vote. I’m so proud of the campaign we built together and of every conversation we had across our community.
“Tonight isn’t the result we were after in Kāpiti. But the makeup of the next government is still to be decided, and there’s more to come in the weeks ahead. I’ve just gotten off the phone with Tim and congratulated him on the result.”
For Handford the future remains as uncertain as the final outcome of the election.
At 26 on the Labour Party List Handford will be on the cusp of going to Parliament and potentially giving Kāpiti (and Waikanae) two MPs.
In a social media post Costley said “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Humbled to have the support of our community to serve as MP for Kāpiti.”
The overall outcome of the election is unlikely to be known for weeks as the parties negotiate. On election night both National and Labour had 29.3% of the total Party Vote. Labour had 701,941. just 62 votes ahead of National. The Greens had 318,889 in third. Below is the Party Vote for Kāpiti.
