Preliminary results released by the Invercargill City Council at the start of the week confirmed Mr Campbell won the race for mayor.
Mr Campbell said he and his wife Jessie left Scotland to live in Invercargill in 1981 but later lived in Australia, Wales and Canada.
"We’ve been away and back four times.
"I’m sure it’s a world record of having emigrated to Invercargill four times and the real punchline is — from four different countries."
Despite the time away in other countries, 30 of his past 44 years had been spent in Invercargill, he said.
"We eventually built our lives here and made sure that this would be home base ... kept coming back, and then eventually settled back here permanently in 2009."
The couple were attracted to Invercargill after seeing an advertisement in London’s The Times newspaper that promised the south of New Zealand was "forever spring".
"You would realise pretty quickly that was probably an exaggeration."
There was no internet in those days to find out what places were like and the public library did not offer much information.
"So when we came here the first time, it was for the fabulous weather.
"We loved it here right from the first time we arrived, despite the fact the weather was not as described."
The couple returned to Invercargill as their family grew up.
Mr Campbell was elected to the council in 2022, and was appointed deputy mayor.
His aim in the next three years was to "keep Invercargill moving" but not putting the cost of that on ratepayers, he said.
"Rates will increase but we’ve just got to minimise that and that means, you know, that we do things more efficiently than we do at the moment."
The city had been performing well in recent years.
"Economically, we’ve got the lowest unemployment rate in New Zealand.
"We’ve got the most optimistic, I think, business sector in New Zealand at the moment."
The inner city had also been rebuilt.
"We’ve got everything going for us."
At present he was chatting to councillors and deciding who would chair the various committees that oversaw the work of the council.
An important part of chairing a meeting was to make sure the business was completed in a respectful way, he said.
The preliminary results gave Mr Campbell the mayoralty with 6815 votes, the next highest-polling candidate, Alex Crackett, received 4940 votes.
There were 904 special votes left to count at the time.
Final results are expected today.
