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Wellington City Council Election Results

14 October, 2007 · 1 Comment

The preliminary results haven’t provided any surprises.   The dumping of Alick Shaw and Jack Ruben being interesting and relieving respectively. 

The mayoral ‘race’ presents a few lessons.  The most stunningly obvious one is that being an incumbent helps.  Kerry won by a mile and the next five slots were filled by the incumbent councillors (even Ruben!?!?).  The classic effect of low turn-out.

McGrath has shown how not to run an expensive campaign (he may have spent nearly $20 a vote).  The four last placings demonstrate that campaigning requires building a profile before and during the campaign.

Categories: elections · politics · wellington

1 response so far ↓

  • Skinny // 15 October, 2007 at 8:26 pm | Reply

    Poor old Jack…I didn’t even bother to see if he’d gotten through as a councilor.

    Your observations about being an incumbent, and/or well known (as an incumbent councilor) are sad, but true. As for John McGrath – it’s much harder becoming mayor than running a restaurant.

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