With the polls showing the Greens have a fight for survival on their hands, Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick has decided to fight for the electorate vote in Auckland Central.
The seat has been held by National deputy leader Nikki Kaye since 2008, during which time she's seen off challenges from future Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Greens' own Denise Roche.
The latest Newshub-Reid Research poll had the Greens on 5.5 percent, in danger of falling below the 5 percent threshold required to get into Parliament without winning an electorate - which the Greens have only done once before, in 1999.
"The Greens have always been underdogs who defied the odds, fighting for every inch of political ground," said Swarbrick, the youngest MP currently in the House and the party's number three behind leaders Marama Davidson and James Shaw.
"I'm bringing that fight to Auckland Central."
Swarbrick, who lives in the electorate, says "every issue" in the area has "a Green solution".
"The people of Auckland Central deserve a representative who will actually stand up for them and their beliefs, not just say they will."
Swarbrick told The Spinoff that Auckland Central has the "lowest National party vote" of any electorate currently held by a National MP.
Labour is running Helen White, who only narrowly lost to Kaye in 2017. If she fails to win, it's unlikely she'll make it into Parliament, ranked just 50th on Labour's list, so isn't expected to roll over and let Swarbrick take the seat.
There is a risk Swarbrick's push for electorate votes ends up splitting the left vote, allowing Kaye to come through the middle. Every single one of Kaye's victories since 2008 has been by a margin so small, if every Green voter had given their vote to the Labour candidate, Labour would have won the seat - and vice versa.
