Preliminary election results have confirmed Tom Campbell is set to take the reins as Invercargill’s new Mayor.
Polls for local body elections throughout New Zealand closed at midday on Saturday, 11 October.
Invercargill City Council Deputy Electoral Officer Michael Morris said preliminary results – which included all ordinary votes, including those cast on Election Day – released about midday today had confirmed Campbell won the race for Mayor, with 6,815 votes so far.
The next highest-polling candidate was Alex Crackett, who received 4,940 votes in her bid for the top job. However, Crackett was successfully re-elected as a Councillor.
Campbell was first elected to Invercargill City Council in 2022, and was appointed to the role of Deputy Mayor shortly after. He also served as Acting Mayor temporarily in 2024 and 2025, standing in for former Mayor Nobby Clark.
Campbell has held several key roles within Council, serving as Deputy Chair for the Infrastructure and Projects, Community Wellbeing and Regulatory, Finance and Policy, and Risk and Assurance committees. He was also a member of the Community Wellbeing Fund and City Centre Heritage subcommittees.
The preliminary results also confirmed that Grant Dermody (8,129 votes), Trish Boyle (7,267 votes), Darren Ludlow (7,177 votes), Ria Bond (7,153 votes), and Ian Pottinger (7,027 votes) would return to the Council table. Previous Councillor Marcus Lush, who was ousted in 2022’s local body elections, would also return to Council, with 8,128 votes.
They join returning Councillors Steve Broad (11,143 votes) and Alex Crackett (9,703 votes), who had been confirmed when progress results were made available shortly after polls closed.
“While successful candidates for most of the 12 seats on Council can now be declared, there is still the potential for the final makeup of our Council to change slightly,” Morris said.
Morris said the Final Results, which would include 904 Special Votes, were expected to be confirmed later this week.
At the same point in the 2022 Election, Invercargill had just 594 Special Votes to count, he said.
“That’s quite a significant jump in the numbers of Special Votes being cast, which reflects the surge in last-minute voting around the country.”
Jo Eruera, Justin Sutherland, Ray Fife, Haylee Simeon, and Frazer Murdoch had been confirmed as elected to the Bluff Community Board.
Meanwhile, preliminary results also confirmed Paddy O’Brien, Suzanne Prentice, Angela Newell, Graham Hawkes, and Sheree Carey would all return to the Invercargill Licensing Trust. They would also be joined by new member Nick Jeffrey.
Morris said the new Council would be sworn in on Tuesday, 28 October. The first Council meeting would be held on Tuesday, 4 November.
The voter turnout – excluding Special Votes – for Invercargill was 44.77 percent.
“It’s really disappointing to see that fewer people voted this time around in comparison to the 2022 Elections, however it does reflect what we are seeing across the country. We would like to thank those people in our community who did take the time to vote, and play a part in guiding our collective future,” Morris said.
