Incumbent Taranaki-King Country MP Barbara Kuriger is facing challenges from both inside her party and outside of it at for the upcoming election. FILE PHOTO
Today is the day the National Party is expected to announce who will run as its Taranaki-King Country MP at this year’s general election.
National has confirmed to King Country News that this year there are two nominees for the Taranaki-King Country selection – the incumbent Barbara Kuriger and Brian Winter.
Barbara was first elected as MP in 2014 and has held the position since.
Voter margins in the electorate show the race to become Taranaki-King Country’s MP has become tighter in the past decade.
In 2014, Barbara won by 16,773 votes.
In 2017 the margin was 15,259.
At the last election, Labour’s candidate Angela Roberts proved to be a serious contender, narrowing Barbara’s win margin to 3134.
Angela is a current Labour list MP and has also announced her intention to run for the seat again at this year’s election.
Now Barbara’s own peers have voted to decide who will represent the National Party at this year’s election, to be announced today.
Her challenger, Brian Winter, is a high school teacher from Te Awamutu.
He was policy chair of the Young Nats, the party’s youth wing, for four years according to his LinkedIn profile.
Election day this year is October 14.
