Booth-by-booth results: Peters won even in National strongholds

Winston Peters put his win down to "taking the road less travelled" in his Force for the North bus tour, visiting places that might not have seen a politician for years.

Even supposedly safe National strongholds such as Kerikeri were won by NZ First leader Winston Peters in Saturday's Northland byelection, booth-by-booth results show.

National had at least been expected to win in relatively well-off, politically conservative centres such as Wellsford, Mangawhai and Kerikeri, where candidate Mark Osborne and a roll call of government ministers had campaigned hard.

Election-night results from those three towns, however, show National managed to hold on to only Wellsford by a slim margin (201 votes to 194 for Mr Peters). The only other major booths won by National were in Paihia (175:158), Pukenui (by two votes, 127:125) and Hukerenui (96:87).

Mr Peters won in Mangawhai (273:230) and Mangawhai Heads (137:120), and in Kerikeri's three main polling stations (Kerikeri Primary 381:297, Kingston House 355:302, Riverview School 257:222). Some of his biggest wins as a percentage of votes cast were in the South Hokianga towns of Omapere (122:34) and Rawene (126:20).

Mr Peters dominated in economically struggling towns such as Kaikohe (Kaikohe East 135:54, Kaikohe Intermediate 73:44), Kaitaia (153:95) and Kaeo (198:97) but also in prosperous areas such as Russell (264:210) and Waipapa (358:305). He won all the larger towns in the Kaipara (Dargaville 257:168, Ruawai 149:135, Maungaturoto 235:140 and Paparoa 191:157).

Mr Peters put his win down to "taking the road less travelled" in his Force for the North bus tour, visiting places that might not have seen a politician for years.

Mr Osborne lost even in his hometown of Taipa (170 votes to 257) and nearby Mangonui (231:327).

Labour's Willow-Jean Prime won only 12 votes in her home town of Moerewa, the same number as Mr Osborne. Labour leader Andrew Little had called on the party's supporters to vote for NZ First. In Whananaki, where Mr Peters grew up, NZ First gained 40 votes to National's 26.

In his speech at Russell's Duke of Marlborough on Saturday night, Mr Peters put his win down to his efforts to visit "tens of thousands of forgotten people" in every corner of the electorate.

You can do you own analysis using this interactive map of the byelection results.