Auckland mayoral race: How the war was won for Phil Goff

Thursday, 24 October 2019

Newly re-elected Phil Goff returns to his mayoral office.

The one-sided nature of Auckland's recent mayoral election has been laid bare in a breakdown of voting into 32 community battles.

Phil Goff won all but one, on his way to an overwhelming 100,000 vote margin over his main challenger John Tamihere.

The small chink in Goff's support armour was in northernmost Wellsford where, not Tamihere, but Craig Lord emerged the winner.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff won all but one of 32 community battles in the election

Tamihere's strongest showing was in his home territory out west, but there he still managed only 39 per cent of the combined Goff-Tamihere vote.

**READ MORE:

John Tamihere's best showing was picking up 39 per cent of the combined Tamihere Goff vote in the west.

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The red-blue pendulum swung firmly Goff's way on October 12, after he lost 8 of 20 local board areas in 2016, to National party-backed Vic Crone.

Tamihere's other strength was in the south, but across Otara, Manurewa and Papakura that still meant doing only slightly better than getting one vote for every two Goff votes.

In defeat he partly blamed the National and Labour parties for mobilising against him, but the detail showed his candidacy failed to make an impact across Auckland.

The biggest swing in Goff's direction occurred in what were traditionally National Party areas.

In Orakei where Goff was beaten by Crone in 2016, he pulled 13,799 votes to Tamihere's 6,602.

Likewise in Howick which Goff lost to Crone in 2016, he out-voted Tamihere two-to-one.

Lord's distant third place, 29,577 to Goff's 180,146 was made up of third-placings in most of the 32 divisions.

However John Hong took the bronze in the Puketapapa local board area, and out east in Pakuranga, Howick and Botany.

The areas with the highest number of voters who did not vote for any mayoral candidate, were Orakei, Devonport-Takapuna and Hibiscus Coast.

Nearly 10 per cent of 7164 Aucklanders who skipped selecting a mayor, were in Orakei

The mayor and the 20 councillors will be sworn in at a ceremony in the Auckland Town Hall on November 1.