No ifs, no buts not even a solitary maybe, it is as clear as the nose on your face and I only ever saw one without that appendage, a poor bugger who failed in a suicide by gunshot who only removed his.

I digress, Kiwiblog has published recent polling that sees the five top contenders who crave to be the next Auckland Mayor (a veritable disqualifying fact if there ever was one).

Extracting an average delivers twenty percent each so the figures vary mostly by the margin of error;

Efeso Collins backed officially by Labour 21.7%
Leo Malloy a gobby restaurant owner also on 21.7%
Viv Beck a sitting councillor and “Heart of the City” CEO a small step behind on 20.5%
Wayne Brown an ex mayor from up north now described as a “Businessman” on 20.1%,
Craig Lord who has previously been a candidate for the job comes in at 16%.

Check the maths but I get that list to total almost exactly 100% so I think discarding all others might be a correct option.
Two at 1.7 above the average, a third at .7 a fourth at .2 and it could be churlish to not include the fifth only a mere 4% behind the bunch some four months out.
Then we recall that the voter turnout last election was a mere 37% and the margin of error looms large as a factor as the stats render such infinitesimal differences well into the Negligible zone where one voter deciding on their way to vote suddenly decides a beer might be more beneficial being the ultimate factor?

A total voter turnout three years ago is reported as 375 649, so an extrapolation has
Collins – 81 516
Malloy – 81 516
Beck – 77 003
Brown – 75 881
Lord – 60 104.

Goodbye Craig lord, who knows where his votes might go if he exited but assuming he is currently nowhere near Goff and the NZLP any meaningful assistance for Collins is not a given.
That leaves the intelligence of the three in the middle?

Would it be impertinent to consider some strategic thinking for if they all consider their continued strategy to remain a contender and once again watch another NZLP victory as anything other that a significant defeat looms due to Collins getting his Labour backers including the unions motivated sufficiently to garner the ten votes necessary. Jesus H Christ on a bike with flat tires, draw lots you stupid people because if you truly want to deny Labour it will require some biting of tongues. If those three allow their egos to prevail then all withdraw and let Mr Lord through, place those egos in a jar of formalin for the three years and suck it up.

Couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery begins to dominate thinking? aye. But one certain factor remains, the party with a national profile will not sit around wondering. Remember the Stalin meme it matter not who votes, it is all about “who counts the votes”.