Unwrap some new, tasty democracy-flavoured treats.

We’re firing the starting gun. With three months to go until the election, today officially marks the beginning of The Spinoff’s election coverage. 

Look, it’s true that we have already been all over every twist and turn on the road to November 7, but it’s like knowing Christmas is coming and doing a bit of prep while still having enough self-restraint to hold off putting up the tree until December 1. 

Well, drag out the decorations/hoardings and breathe in the smell of pine/nervous sweat, because it’s all on. 

Now that we’re official, we have some tasty, democracy-flavoured treats for you. 

Intrepid senior writer Hayden Donnell has left the house a record four school nights in the past week to sample public meetings of Labour, National, the Greens and that spring chick of a party that’s ruffling so many feathers, Opportunity. He saw Christopher Luxon wrestle with a soundsystem, waning hope at a Chloe Swarbrick meeting and Qiulae Wong and Helen White fight for Mt Albert.

Ātea editor Liam Rātana has been sifting through the Te Pāti Māori rubble to figure out if a Phoenix will rise in the Māori electorates on November 7. With two new policies released in the past week, he says the party is trying to sell a vision of Māori self-determination.

Love our series One MP, One Pint? Well, it’s had an election campaign glow-up. Political reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith will still head down to the pub for yarns, but for the next few months she’ll be drinking with wannabe MPs. The first instalment of One Candidate, One Pint is out now and features Act’s Tāmaki candidate James Christmas.

Also new: Characters of the Campaign Trail. In this series, we’re burrowing into the minds of voters to discover what makes them tick. First up, meet 24-year-old NZ First supporter Jackson Fowler – and yes, that is a tattoo of Winston Peters’ face on his forearm. 

Worried you’ll miss something, or drown in the drama of the campaign? We got you. Sign up for our new election newsletter, Two Ticks, and Lyric will send you her wrap of the week’s biggest and most batshit news every Friday. 

Editor-at-large Toby Manhire will be all over the campaign in our fortnightly politics podcast, Gone By Lunchtime, with Ben Thomas and Annabelle Lee-Mather. For the first election season ever, we will not only be offering Toby in fortnightly doses, but also serving him up on multiple weeknights via new podcast At Large With Toby Manhire. On this pod, Toby offers a balanced diet – politics, yes, but also a range of other fibrous and fun content, to keep your life regular during this campaign.

Over the next three months, we will cover politicians you hate and politicians you like, we will write opinion pieces you agree with and ones that you don’t, and we’ll liveblog the debates and dramas that have you gripped or wishing the whole shebang was over. We’ll trust you to gulp down the information and analysis you find helpful, push aside the coverage you just can’t stomach, and then, having been presented with a healthy, rainbow-coloured smorgasbord of political content, go off to make your own decision come November 7. 

We are a pack of political nerds and we’re very excited to be bringing you election coverage, but this work ain’t cheap. We want to send our journalists out on the campaign trail to ask questions, scrutinise claims, weigh arguments and, honestly, collect material for jokes.

We don’t think political coverage should be a luxury, so if you are able to, please go here to donate to The Spinoff so we can keep our election coverage free for all.