Sitting Green Party councillor Celia Wade-Brown defeated incumbent mayor Kerry Prendergast and four other candidates.

On 9 October 2010, elections were held for the position of mayor of Wellington, for 14 councillors representing the 5 wards of the city council, for the city's 12 community board representatives, for the Capital and Coast District Health Board, for the Greater Wellington Regional Council and for the Hutt Mana Charitable Trust.

Candidates who declared that they would contest the mayoralty were the incumbent Kerry Prendergast (who announced that she would want a fourth term back in early 2010 after initially ruling it out), city councillor Celia Wade-Brown and Jack Yan.

[2] The final candidates standing in the 2010 election were: Mayor Kerry Prendergast, councillors Celia Wade-Brown and Bryan Pepperell, businessman Jack Yan, Al Mansell and Bernard O'Shaughnessy.

An opinion poll for the Dominion Post asked on 3 March 2010:[6] Would you vote for Kerry Prendergast for a fourth term as Wellington mayor?