Four candidates are vying to lead Auckland, but three are them are from the right. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Four candidates are vying to lead Auckland, but three are them are from the right. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Local government election campaigns don't exactly have a reputation for high drama. But this year's Auckland mayoral race has all the makings of a cracker.
Here's why: after 12 years of centre-left control of the mayoralty, this year should be a golden opportunity for the Auckland right.
But right now,it looks like they're blowing it.
With the centre-left getting organised and coalescing around Efeso Collins, the centre-right is splitting its votes and support between three candidates: former Far North Mayor Wayne Brown, Heart of the City Chief Executive Viv Beck, and controversial restaurant owner Leo Molloy.
Auckland mayoral candidate Leo Molloy with his mayoral campaign bus in Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The only polling on the race that's gone public is a TalbotMills Research Poll, which showed Collins as the front runner, with Brown, then Beck, then Molloy trailing behind.
What was interesting though was that the combined votes of the three trailing candidates was higher than the frontrunner. If they could sort themselves out, there's a real path to victory.
That makes sense - Collins is a good campaigner and a genuinely excellent stump speaker, but he doesn't start with the name recognition that Phil Goff and Len Brown had when they first ran.
Auckland Mayoral candidate Wayne Brown at his campaign launch in Avondale in March. Photo / Dean Purcell
The strategy for centre-left campaigns in the Super City era has been to start with a strong base of support in South Auckland, then to reach into the Isthmus and the West, and squeak out any North Shore votes you can.
It's a playbook Collins might be able to replicate, but his team clearly knows he has a lot of work to do in those areas. Collins has been touring the city ward by ward for months now, canvassing, pressing the flesh at markets and meeting businesses.
Consolidating the centre-left vote means Collins is likely to finish no worse than second. The question will be whether someone else can emerge as the "not-Collins" vote and solidify enough vote elsewhere to win.
The problem is that none of the other candidates can agree on who that person should be. None of the three candidates think any of the others can do it, and all of them think they're the only one who can.
Coming second in the polling, Wayne Brown would seem like the obvious choice based on the numbers. He's smartly running on a relatively non-ideological platform - positioning himself as "the fixer" and pointing to a track record of being sent in to fix big organisations before. His campaign appears to be betting that voters looking for change will trust him the most to deliver it.
Molloy's bet is that voters are in a much angrier place - unhappy with the direction of the city and willing to take a punt on a combative personality. It's a classic Trumpian "throw the bastards out" pitch, compared to Brown's more technocratic "let me get in there and fix it" pitch.
Viv Beck, Chief Executive at Heart of the City Auckland, she is also running in the Auckland City mayoral campaign race. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Viv Beck by contrast is making a much more classic centre-right pitch. She appears to be betting that a classic National style campaign, potentially endorsed by the centre-right Citizens and Ratepayers grouping and using classic voter targeting techniques in a low turn-out race will be enough for a first-place vote in a crowded field - especially if Brown takes some centre-left vote off Collins with his less ideological pitch.
And as well as differences in political strategy, there's no shortage of egos and internal National Party rivalries involved.
Molloy's campaign has received supportive Facebook posts from former National leader Judith Collins and she attended Molloy's supporters' event earlier in the year. Viv Beck on the other hand has been endorsed by another former leader in Simon Bridges. Wayne Brown is getting support from campaigners associated with the Todd Muller coup. It's all the ghosts of National Party feuds past, revisiting themselves on the party in the present.
The question will be can one of the three candidates be prevailed on to exit the race, or can any of them find a way to break through the crowded field and amass enough votes to stop Collins.
If not, the centre-left's lock on the Auckland Super City Mayoralty looks set to continue.
