Dan Sullivan Labour John Beanland Citizens' The Christchurch mayoral by-election in 1936 was triggered by the resignation of the incumbent, Dan Sullivan, who had been appointed cabinet minister after the Labour Party winning the general election in November 1935.

The election was won by John Beanland of the Citizens' Association, who narrowly beat the Labour candidate.

[1] The Labour Party won the November 1935 general election and Sullivan was appointed cabinet minister.

Sullivan reluctantly resigned from the mayoralty in February 1936, as the heavy workload of a cabinet minister was incompatible with remaining mayor.

[7] The resignations of Sullivan as mayor, and Beanland (Citizens' Association) and Archer (Labour) as city councillors, were handed in on 14 February, triggering a by-election for 11 March.

Active in many clubs and on various committees, he was first elected as a Christchurch city councillor in 1914 for the conservative Citizens' Association.

[16] He had first stood for mayor in the 1925 election mentioned above[13] and was successful due to vote splitting by the Citizens' Association candidates.

He had not previously served as a Christchurch city councillor[17] but had stood in the Lyttelton electorate by-elections in 1933 and 1935, on both occasions polling just over 2% of the votes.