Election 2026

Political leader profiles

Chris Hipkins wearing a jacket, sitting at a table, with pen to paper

The lifelong campaign of Chris Hipkins

Lyric Waiwiri-Smith

A man looks at the camera

Christopher Luxon: The Nat with nine lives, or a man on borrowed time?

Veronica Schmidt

Quilae Wong, a 38-year-old woman with long brown hair is smiling at Iain Lees-Galloway, a man with white hair and a white beard.

Qiulae Wong, the radical moderate

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi smiles while greeting another person wearing a black Māori-branded jacket. Waititi wears a wide-brimmed black hat, sunglasses and a black-and-white varsity jacket.

Rawiri Waititi: The hesitant leader

A man wearing sunglasses and a jacket is walking towards the camera in an outdoor setting. Slightly behind him to his left is another man, smiling and wearing a rosette. An orange sticker with a wrinkled appearance, saying "Election 2026", is in the bottom left corner of the image..

Is David Seymour steadying the ship or stirring the pot?

Winston Peters grinning.

Winston Peters still wants to be the prime minister

Chlöe Swarbrick with former Auckland mayors Phil Goff and Len Brown at the opening of the City Rail Link (Photo: Phil Walter/Getty)

Chlöe Swarbrick and the weight of expectations

Latest election news

A selection of screenshots of digital ads for political parties, overlaid with briefcase images with dollar signs on. In the centre is a hand holding a phone showing an image of a seated man in a suit.

Everything we learned from a deep dive into digital advertising at the 2026 election

Joel's feature images - 13

Will one of the Chrises go?

Gerry Brownlee speaking from the Speaker's office.

‘My view is it was too negative’: Gerry Brownlee on the National Party campaign

Henry (2250 x 1350 px) - 30

Billionaires at the ballot box: Did the vote-splitting campaign work?

Uploaded Image

The best and worst voting booths for each party, plus other data details from Election 2026

A clip of the parliament visualisation by Chris McDowall and Tim Denee

A visual history of the NZ parliament – 2026 edition

imageT - Politics

How the different parties are positioning themselves for coalition negotiations

Lyric Waiwiri-Smith

Black-and-white portraits of nine incoming Māori MPs arranged in an overlapping collage against a textured red background with a bold yellow geometric shape.

Meet the nine new Māori MPs entering parliament

Chris Luxon and Chris Hipkins on election night

The entrances of election night, ranked

Qiulae Wong and her caucus on the steps of parliament.

‘She would have been, like, are you insane?’ Qiulae Wong on her new job