Christchurch mayoral election, 1935

← 1933

8 May 1935

1936 →


Candidate	Dan Sullivan	Hugh Acland
Party	Labour	Citizens' Association
Popular vote	20,066	19,737
Percentage	50.41	49.59

Mayor before election

Dan Sullivan

Elected Mayor

Dan Sullivan

The Christchurch City mayoral election, 1935 was held on 8 May 1935. The incumbent, Dan Sullivan of the Labour Party narrowly beat the conservative candidate, Hugh Acland, a surgeon and World War I veteran. The election attracted nationwide attention, as Christchurch was a Labour-stronghold and due to Acland's widespread popularity, it was regarded as a test whether Labour could potentially win the November 1935 general election.

In 1935, the voting system returned to the initially used first-past-the-post after a ranked voting system had been tried for some years. The country experienced the Great Depression at the time, with high unemployment. Sullivan had been the city's mayor since 1931, when he beat William Hayward.

Dan Sullivan was first elected to Christchurch City Council in 1915. He had first stood for the House of Representatives in the 1908 election and in 1919, he decisively beat the Minister of Public Health, George Warren Russell, in the wake of the 1918 flu epidemic. Since then, Sullivan had been representing the Avon electorate. Sullivan stood for mayor in 1923 but was beaten by James Arthur Flesher. A Labour Party politician, he was regarded as a moderate.

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