"Like most rural areas with urban environments such as Tukituki, people voted strongly for the National Party.
"Although Lorck narrowed the gap the result showed there were a number of Labour people who voted for her but gave their party vote to National."
He said it affirmed the symbolic relationship the main parties had with their constituencies - National with rural voters and Labour with urban.
Even though this election had highlighted that the regions were struggling, the rural sector's emotional ties to the National Party came to the fore again, Professor Shaw said.
New Zealand First candidate Joe Kairau came from nowhere this year but secured 1789 votes, just ahead of Green Party candidate Chris Perley with 1604 votes.
Professor Shaw said Mr Kairau's performance, as well as New Zealand First as a whole, which came third behind National and Labour was "not a non-creditable performance, but it's not enough to be significant".
Mr Foss said he watched the election closely on Saturday night and was not at all surprised at the electorate's strong National party vote.
He said he predicted Mr Yule would win.
"Even though there was a lot of rhetoric, people chose Lawrence because he's a proven leader."
Although Ms Lorck's result showed she had been active over the past two years on a number of issues, many of them important local issues, she suffered from the strong National party vote, and being up against Mr Yule's experience, he said.
"Lawrence should be sitting back and smiling now, and patting the other people on the back who helped him.
"He probably had to work harder than he initially thought but his proven leadership came through and Hawke's Bay will be very proud to have him in Parliament."
Former Tukituki Labour MP Rick Barker, who won the then Hastings seat in 1993 and retained his position through the transition to the Tukituki electorate up until 2005, said he thought Ms Lorck ran an outstanding campaign.
"She was highly visible with all the street corner meetings and she won the hoardings war.
"She also did a good job focusing on the local issues and she ran hard for the whole three years between elections."
He also highlighted the fact the party vote in the electorate was greatly in favour of National.
"No one could get past that. For Anna, the Labour party vote needed to come up to give her a platform to be more competitive, but that was something she could not control."
Mr Barker said she should feel a great deal of pride and satisfaction for what she achieved with her competitive campaign, as could Mr Yule.
"Lawrence can say he is justly there - he did not get there by default, he had to scrap for every vote so he can take satisfaction from the outcome as well."
Yesterday, Ms Lorck spent the day with her family, resting up from campaigning and contemplating the outcome.
"I am naturally disappointed, but no one can take away the incredibly hard work our team did to get where we got to."
She congratulated Mr Yule on his win, but noted that the efforts of the Labour team in Tukituki had ensured the electorate was well positioned for 2020.
She also thanked the 13686 people who voted for her, the greatest support for a Labour candidate in 12 years.
This was a rough election for the minor parties, including the Green Party which just scraped in to secure a spot in Parliament, currently standing at 5.9 per cent before the special votes come in.
This had an impact on Tukituki where Green candidate Chris Perley's votes almost halved from the 2014 election, but he said his strategy was always to promote the Green party vote rather than the electorate vote.
He congratulated Mr Yule on his win and said the National Party could do with some of his compassionate conservative ethics.
"I hope he goes in and does what he said he would do to change the National Party attitude towards the environment.
"I hope he holds up Hawke's Bay's GE-free status, and supports a high-value, high quality local economy."