The Rongotai electorate is centred on the southern and eastern suburbs of Wellington City.

It stretches from Miramar in the east to take in the suburbs of Rongotai, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay and Hataitai and runs from the south coast at Island Bay up through the southern section of the Brooklyn Hill to an east–west border next to Wellington Hospital in Newtown.

A revision after 1996 pulled the boundary southwards, moving the suburbs around the Basin Reserve and the Massey University campus into the Wellington Central electorate.

[citation needed] In the 2002 redistribution, the area covered by the Rongotai electorate did not change.

[5] Rongotai was one of the original 65 mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation electorates drawn in 1994 ahead of the 1996 election.

[8] Chris Finlayson of the National Party opposed King, his distant cousin, since the 2008 election.

[9] King announced in March 2017 that she was stepping down from her role as Labour's deputy leader and would retire from politics at the 2017 general election.

[10] The electorate of Rongotai was won in the election by Paul Eagle, retaining it for Labour.

[11] During the 2020 general election, Eagle retained Rongotai for Labour based on preliminary results.

[12] Eagle announced in June 2022 that he would contest the 2022 Wellington City mayoral election and should he be successful, he would resign from Parliament and trigger a by-election.