With four candidates left, will mayors’ race get tighter?

The withdrawal of Frank Stewart from the Kamloops mayors’ race today (Friday) adds yet another interesting wrinkle to the local civic election. Stewart said he withdrew because he wants to see Mayor Peter Milobar ousted.

“This type of rough-shod civic management has to stop,” he said. “We can’t afford a mayor like Milobar any more.”

Will it make any difference? Well, in The Daily News online survey, at this writing, Milobar is leading with 41 per cent. Dieter Dudy is second at 35 per cent. Frank Stewart, Gordon Chow and Brian Alexander are tied at a distant third with 8 per cent.

Stewart is urging his supporters to swing over to Dudy. For the sake of argument, let’s assume his 8 per cent did his bidding. That would put Dudy ahead with 43 per cent and heading for election as the surprise next mayor of Kamloops.

A full 8 per cent swing, of course, won’t happen. But what if some of the Chow and Alexander supporters saw a chance to unseat the incumbent and moved to Dudy? Or Chow and Alexander pulled a Stewart and threw their support to Dudy? The latter can’t technically happen because today was the deadline for getting your name off the ballot, but they could refuse to campaign.

You get the point — if Milobar is truly in a minority position, ie. he has less than 50 per cent support, this race could actually get quite interesting. And if Dudy were to pull off the upset, it would be stunning — a last-minute candidate with a last-minute campaign unseating an incumbent.

Numbers quoted above are taken from The Daily News online poll, which is meant for general information only and is not based on recognized statistical methods.