Mayor Incumbent mayor
Tory Whanau had announced she would run for a second term, but later changed her mind after
Andrew Little entered the race.
Ray Chung would contest the election as the candidate from the Independent Together group. Other candidates looking to contest the mayoralty included business owner Karl Tiefenbacher, former Wellington LIVE media owner Graham Bloxham, conservationist Kelvin Hastie, former city councillor Rob Goulden, and former chartered accountant Alex Baker. A campaign parodying Independent Together was launched in June 2025, featuring "Pennywize the Rewilding Clown" for mayor, with a campaign website that closely parodied that of the Independent Together website. The parody played on
the character from Stephen King's horror franchise
It.
ACT Local On 18 March,
ACT announced they would run candidates in local elections for the first time. ACT's candidates would oppose attempts to manage carbon emissions at the local level. On 26 July ACT announced three candidates for the Wellington City Council; Ray Bowden, for the Wharangi/Onslow-Western Ward, Mark Flynn for the Takapu/Northern ward and Luke Kuggeleijn for the for the Motukairangi/Eastern ward.
Green On 7 April, the
Green Party announced incumbent Mayor Tory Whanau and councillors Laurie Foon and Geordie Rogers would seek re-election and newcomer Jonny Osborne would be running for council in the Motukairangi/Eastern ward. It was not announced whether incumbent councillor for the Māori ward, Nīkau Wi Neera would run again. On 29 April, after Labour's Andrew Little announced his candidacy for mayor, Whanau announced she would pull out of the mayoral race and would run for council in the Māori ward. Incumbent councillor Wi Neera announced he would not be seeking re-election. On 6 May incumbent councillor Rebecca Matthews announced she would be seeking re-election as a Green party candidate after leaving the Labour Party.
Independent Together Independent together was launched to contest the election on 13 April 2025 with incumbent councilor Ray Chung as their mayoral candidate.The group is fiscally conservative (with their key policy being zero rates increases in the upcoming term) and they oppose party politics on council. Alongside Chung's mayoral candidacy he ran to retain his current seat if not elected to the mayoralty. Eight other candidates ran for councillor positions. Independent Together has strong ties to right wing group Better Wellington. Inflection Point NZ. The websites were set up and managed by right-wing political operative and
pro-whaling lobbyist
Glenn Inwood. Independent Together's ads were authorised by Better Wellington's Paul Heffernan and Chung's campaign manager was Better Wellington spokesperson Alistair Boyce. Independent Together's policy pillars were formulated by Chung, Inwood, Boyce and Heffernan in consultation with Better Wellington members.
Chung email scandal An email sent by Chung to three other councillors in which he spread a rumour about a sexual encounter between mayor Whanau and a third party was released in July. The email was broadly condemned by Chung's opponents, as well as Prime Minister
Christopher Luxon and Leader of the Opposition
Chris Hipkins. The three councillors that received the email were Tony Randle, Nicola Young and John Apanowicz. Young told the
New Zealand Herald that she told Chung the email was "unwise and tawdry" at the time. Randle said, with regards to the rumour in the email, that "people should be held accountable and in the end you stand as a person whose intentions and character are judged every three years", and that he did not believe the email ruled out Chung as a candidate. Apanowicz said he did not recall receiving the email, but that the rumours about mayor Whanau "upset" him. A campaign event following the scandal erupted into chaos, as opponents of Chung made up a considerable minority of those in attendance at the event hosted in The Grand on
Courtenay Place in the city centre.
Labour On 16 March, the
Labour Party announced that incumbent councillors
Ben McNulty and Nureddin Abdurahman would seek re-election and that Afnan Al-Rubayee would run again in the Pukehīnau/Lambton ward. After a party vote on 6 April, the party announced three more candidates; Matthew Reweti would again run for the Māori ward, Joy Gribben for the Wharangi/Onslow-Westernward and Sam O'Brien for the Motukairangi/Eastern ward. Incumbent councillor Rebecca Matthews was not confirmed for nomination and would leave the Labour party and instead run for reelection under the Green party. The party's president and former city councillor
Jill Day and former mayor
Justin Lester were approached for the candidacy but declined, although Lester did not completely rule it out. Former
leader of the Labour Party Andrew Little announced in April that he was considering running. On the 16th he announced he was seeking the Labour nomination and he was confirmed on the 28th. ==Candidates==