Seymour endorses National's Cameron in Nelson electorate race
ACT Party leader David Seymour has endorsed National candidate Blair Cameron in the Nelson electorate race.
Speaking to about 200 people at a public meeting at the Rutherford Hotel in Nelson, Seymour said ACT's Nelson candidate Chris Baillie was not seeking the electorate vote RNZ. Seymour said Baillie had told him that before the meeting.
Seymour advised ACT supporters to give their party vote to ACT and their electorate vote to Cameron. Baillie is a small business owner and former police officer who first entered Parliament as an ACT list MP in 2020. He was not re-elected in 2023 because of his lower party list ranking.
Nelson was decided by 26 votes at the last election, when Labour MP Rachel Boyack beat Cameron. Cameron, 35, is standing in Nelson for National for a second time after being selected as the party's candidate for the 2026 election National Party.
At the meeting, Seymour also spoke about health services. He told the meeting the Upper South Island is facing "real problems" with the health system. He said people had been turned away from needed healthcare because emergency departments "resemble a war zone".
He said wait lists are "as long as a corridor and the corridor is where a lot of the treatment's being done". Seymour also said ACT planned to balance the books by the end of the decade with no new taxes.
