‘The opposite of clever’ saved the Nats’ bacon

Summarised by Centrist

In response to groups encouraging National supporters to split their party and electoral votes to create extra seats through an overhang, former prime minister Sir John Key warned that was “the opposite of clever”. 

As it worked out, the Nats, at this point, have seven overhang seats, which is the only thing saving the right-leaning coalition.

At National's campaign launch on September 27, Key warned supporters against voting for National while backing ACT or NZ First with their party vote.

“That is the opposite of clever,” Key declared, warning the strategy could cost National some of its most talented ministers.

Waikato businessman and entrepreneur Harry Mowbray, whose children founded the global toy giant Zuru, and former National leader Don Brash argued the opposite. Their strategy sought to give National more electorate seats than its party vote would normally entitle it to, creating additional parliamentary seats known as an overhang. 

Preliminary election results suggest the arithmetic worked, although it remains uncertain how much of the outcome can be attributed to the campaign. Part of the strategy also relied on NZ First and ACT voters supporting the National candidate in their electorate.

National won 42 electorate seats despite receiving just 29.21% of the party vote, enough for approximately 35 seats under MMP. The difference creates seven overhang seats.

Te Pāti Māori's five electorate victories add another four, expanding Parliament to 131 seats.

The result gives National, ACT and NZ First a provisional 67 seats, against 64 for Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity.

Speaking to the NZ Herald on November 8, Mowbray said there was “no question” his campaign had helped the coalition.

“It is the only thing that has saved the centre-right in this country,” he said.

Mowbray criticised National's leadership for opposing the strategy, arguing that its focus on protecting individual MPs had come at the expense of the coalition's overall position.

Meanwhile, senior National ministers Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop and Paul Goldsmith are provisionally out of Parliament, the very sort of outcome Key had warned about. But National was so far from the line for list seats that, in retrospect, that seems to have been nearly inevitable.

 Constitutional lawyer Graeme Edgeler has questioned whether the overhang was deliberately engineered or arose naturally from National's declining party vote. Also, some NZ First and Act voters have been using the split vote strategy for years, supporting National at the electorate level, so some of it was already baked into some of National’s electorate seat wins

Approximately 399,000 special votes remain to be counted, with final results due on November 27.

Editor’s note: Mowbray was not the only one pushing the strategy. Reality Check Radio mounted its own nationwide Vote Smart 2026 campaign, distributing more than a million flyers and running billboards and full-page newspaper advertisements. This included a split-vote appeal written by former National leader Don Brash. RCR says it organised the campaign independently, although Mowbray contributed financially.

Read more at The NZ Herald | POLITIK | Electoral Commission preliminary results

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