Elections 2011 - Greens Party Vote

The Greens had a fantastic election, improving on last election's 6.72% and nine seats in the house to breaking the ten precent barrier this election with 10.62%, giving them 13 MP's in the house.

There are really two factors at play with the Greens success, the strengthening of the Green brand and the diabolical performance of the Labour Party. In terms of branding, the Greens have managed to maintain their clean, green and principled guise by rigorously staying on message.

The Greens have realised that they can fly under the radar of scrutiny if they keep to a simple idealistic message. The soft vote doesn't care about scrutiny and the media won't push for answers, if the Greens stay on message; kind of like the defence mechanism of a schooling fish. But in saying that, they have to be commended for how they managed to get their message out, again their advertising and other promotional stunts worked very well.

Along with New Zealand First, the Greens were the big winners on the night. So let's take a look at the numbers. Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

The first observation is that the Greens have maintained support in their last election's best performing electorates, their urban powerhouses. Wellington Central generally had a very low voter turnout (around 64%), but with the help of James Shaw, they increased the party vote from 20.62% when Sue Kedgley stood in 2008 to 26.47% this election.

Another notable standout is Dora Langsbury in the Maori seat of Te Tai Tonga, moving up 13 places with 15.51% of the party vote.

Smallest Party Vote by Electorate

Mangere, Manukau East, and Manurewa are the Labour Party's powerhouse seats, featuring 1, 2, 3 respectively on Labour's top ten party vote chart. It's no surprise that the Greens suffer where Labour performs well.

New List MP Julie Anne Genter also struggled in Mt Roskill against Phil Goff, losing 10 places. Although when we look at Labour's stats, we'll see that Goff performed well, picking up 11 spots to claim 6th place on Labour's top 10.

Biggest increase in Party Vote by Electorate

Now this is a surprise, the big changes have come from the Maori seats, even where no candidates were standing. Possible reasons for the change are having a Maori as one of the co-leaders, their key policy around child poverty and New Zealand First's avoidance of the Maori seats (NZ First get reasonable support in the Maori seats but no longer stand candidates).

Maori party voters who expected the Maori party to go with Labour last election may also have shifted their support to the Greens, and of course disaffected Labour voters.

Biggest decrease in Party Vote by Electorate

Interesting to see current List MP Catherine Delahunty on this list, as the Coromandel is seen as being a rather "green" electorate.

Greens Party Vote by Electorate – Full Results