Businessman and centre-right candidate Wayne Brown has won the race to become Auckland's new mayor, with a 50,000 vote advantage in progress results.
Results released show Wayne Brown with 144,000 votes in comparison to about 90,000 for incumbent Manukau councillor Efeso Collins. Third-place-getter Craig Lord also came through with 18,000 votes.
Meanwhile, progress counts for the rest of the council show a tilt towards the right. Councillors aligned with former mayor Phil Goff including Waitematā representative Pippa Coom and Howick representative Paul Young appear to have lost their seats.
The new mayor of Auckland said he wished his opponent Efeso Collins well. (Source: 1News)
In a tweet, the Labour-endorsed Collins congratulated the former Far North mayor on his election victory. Brown would become Auckland Council's first centre-right mayor after two successive left-leaning mayors in the past decade.
The losing Auckland mayoral candidate said, "we may not have got every strategic decision right." (Source: 1News)
In a statement, Brown said voters had sent their "clearest possible message".
“At more than 300 campaign events over the last six months, Aucklanders have made clear to me and fellow candidate Efeso Collins that you love our city, but that you know much of it is broken.
"It is now up to me, the new governing body and the local boards to act on our mandate, fix what is broken and deliver the change you demand," he said.
"We built a formidable team and now we will widen that team to include everyone who has been elected today, all those Auckland Council officers who work hard and deliver real services to the people of the region, and Efeso, who I have come to regard as a friend and would like to work with over the three years ahead."
The businessman has been elected as the third mayor of the Auckland supercity – after Tāmaki Makaurau's district and city councils were merged over a decade ago.
Incumbent mayor Phil Goff is set to become New Zealand's next High Commissioner to the UK when he finishes his term.
Wayne Brown has run on a campaign to "Fix Auckland" - pointing voters to his previous public sector experience as a "fixer". The new mayor previously served two terms as mayor of the Far North District Council - a council with the population of one of Auckland's local boards - before being defeated in 2013.
His campaign has pointed to Brown's experience chairing multiple district health boards, in the early-to-mid 2000s, and on the boards of Transpower and TVNZ.
Brown's stints as Far North's mayor were later reprimanded by the Auditor General after an inquiry found he had "unwisely" blurred his "personal and official roles."
This year's race for the Auckland mayoralty has been gruelling with two prominent right-leaning candidates dropping out amid concerns about splitting the city's centre-right vote.
Auckland uses the first past the post voting system which means the candidate with the most votes becomes the mayor.
The Prime Minister attended a phone bank event for Collins in Henderson this afternoon. (Source: 1News)
Controversial restaurateur Leo Molloy dropped his bid on the day that nominations closed after a poll result showed him trailing in third place. The businessman said he spent $350,000 on his campaign in May and expects to have another tilt at the mayoralty in 2025.
It’s a two-horse race between Efeso Collins and Wayne Brown. (Source: 1News)
Meanwhile, business association CEO Viv Beck pulled out on the day that voting started - with ballots bearing her name already landing in letterboxes.
Beck was endorsed by Communities and Residents - the National Party's defacto local government arm in Auckland. But her campaign was ultimately derailed by allegations of unpaid campaign work and polls showing her trailing behind Brown.
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