Mt Albert MP Helen White blames part of her wafer-thin margin on the Greens "splitting the vote".
White took over the candidacy of the Auckland seat from former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern. She beat Labour colleague Camilla Belich for the candidacy.
Generally considered to be one of the safest Labour seats, White has won the seat on preliminary results by a paltry margin — just 106 more votes than National's Melissa Lee.
It has been held by a Labour candidate for its entire 77-year history. Ardern won it with a more than 21,000 vote margin in 2020 and a more than 15,000 margin in 2017.
White said she was "really, really proud" of the result.
Asked why she'd done "so badly" by one reporter, White said it was a "ridiculous question".
"I didn't do badly. I did really really well. And if you look at the stats you'll see that."
Looking at the statistics, Labour candidates have beaten Melissa Lee by an average margin of more than 12,500 votes since she first began contesting the seat in 2009.
"We had a Green split, an aggressive two tick campaign and we went out and we door-knocked and we're ahead. We — at the moment — won."
The seat was also contested this election by the Green Party's Ricardo Menéndez March who attracted 6012 votes.
Vote splitting describes when candidates with similar ideologies split support between them, thus weakening both their polls and in effect bolstering a candidate with more divergent views from theirs.
Labour also lost the party vote in Mt Albert on Saturday night, with National ahead by 1663 votes.
"You've seen that change over time anyway," White said.
"We punched above our weight and I'm really proud of my team and you need to look at the results.
"It was a really good campaign.
"It's pretty good if you look at what happened in Auckland and you look at some of my very lovely colleagues who have been in these safe seats and have had the shock of their life."
Asked what impact the Auckland Covid-19 lockdowns may have had on the results in Auckland, White said as she also experienced the lockdown she knew "how hard it was on people".
"If you add the votes from Labour and the Greens together, it's not far behind the last time, it's pretty damn good."
Shortly before losing the Auckland Central electorate to the Greens' Chlöe Swarbrick in 2020, White suggested Swarbrick should pull out of the race to avoid left vote splitting.
Swarbrick beat White by 1068 votes.
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