Labour in New Plymouth

It’s well known that Andrew Little hasn’t done well in New Plymouth as the candidate in 2011 and 2014. But how much has Labour lost support in this seat they used to hold? Here’s the change from 2008 to 2014.

• Party vote – dropped from 31.4% in 2008 to 21.2% in 2014 – a 10.3 percentage point drop
• Electorate vote – dropped from 47.9% in 2008 to 31.9% in 2014 – a 15.9 percentage point drop

By comparison Grant Robertson in Wellington Central increased his electorate vote from 42.2% in 2008 to 52.0% in 2014 – a 9.8 percentage point gain.

UPDATE: Russel Brown makes the point:

I’ll be brief (it’s 5am where I am and have to catch a plane) but the Labour’s leadership result and the means by which it was achieved both seem disastrous for the party and for the prospects of the centre-left.

Little didn’t win the support of the party or the caucus, he loses his electorate more badly every time he contests it, and he’s vowing to dump all the intellectual capital built up by David Parker. I can’t see any good thing about this.

Despite all that it is hard to win a 4th term. Little has a 40% chance or so of becoming Prime Minister, despite just four caucus votes for him.

Brown continues:

The result ends the leadership aspirations of Robertson, easily the best campaigner in the field, and pretty clearly lays waste to the coherent economic philosophy that Parker had been patiently building. I could be wrong, but for now I’m of the view that this result borders on tragedy for Labour.