ANALYSIS: The message from the country couldn't have been clearer.
Change. A resounding call for change.
We don't yet know the shape that change will take but there is one certainty: Christopher Luxon will lead it.
Across the country, there are seats that are too close to call. Look at Te Atatū, a Labour stronghold where the National candidate is ahead by 30 votes on the preliminary results. Or New Lynn, where Labour minister Deborah Russell is 483 votes behind.
National and ACT are holding a majority of the house by the slimmest of margins – and could therefore form a simple two-party coalition with National's 50 seats and ACT's 11.
But governing with a one-seat majority is a risky move – it's putting all your chips into not losing an MP and their electorate over the term, which could derail the Government's ability to pass the laws it wants to.
Luxon may wish to pull Winston Peters in for back up even if he doesn't absolutely need to. Currently, New Zealand First is on 6.46 percent, giving it eight seats.
There are still half a million special votes that are yet to be tallied. That could swing a seat or two and force Christopher Luxon to pick up the phone to Peters. Peters won't talk until all the votes are counted.
And so we wait.
Wait to see how the Government looks, what reforms it might pursue, whether National grabbed enough of the vote to hold a centrist line or whether ACT might push for more radical policy concessions in those negotiations.
And wait to see which defeat path the Labour Party will pick.
The winds of change ripped right through the Labour heartland. Tearing up its decades' long homes. West Coast Tasman – the birthplace of Labour - went blue. New Lynn, Mount Roskill, Te Atatū, on these first results.
It is utter devastation in the red camp that was painted in pain across Chris Hipkins' face.
"I gave it my all," he said.
His all wasn't enough. Who knows if anything would have been enough to fight the mood for change across the nation.
But his caucus will make that call. They'll decide whether Hipkins is the leader they want.
Politics is brutal. And so is the public. When they turn off you, they turf you out.
"You have reached for hope and you have voted for change," Luxon said on Saturday night.
There wasn't much hope in this election campaign. It was driven by fear on both sides.
But as the campaign comes to an end, the era of a new Government dawns. And Christopher Luxon has the task of reuniting a divided nation.
Jenna Lynch is Newshub's Political Editor.
