Volatile ex-Auckland Mayoral candidate Leo Molloy says he will be meeting with Viv Beck's campaign team this week to discuss a public endorsement of his former opponent.
Potentially, Beck could snag a chunk of Molloy's claimed 75,000 votes of support.
But the controversial Auckland businessman and self-described "hospo legend" says an endorsement will hinge on where pro-business candidate Beck sits on the future of the Ports of Auckland.
Molloy quit the Auckland mayoral race on Friday morning, just prior to the deadline for all candidates to nominate themselves for New Zealand's 2022 Local Government Elections.
A crowded group of candidates including Heart of the City chief executive Beck, former Far North Mayor and businessman Wayne Brown, and Molloy had been splitting the right-wing polling for months.
The owner of Headquarters bar in Auckland's Viaduct, Molloy had said he wants to sell the leases of the Ports of Auckland's 77ha of space in perpetuity and open up the harbour to public access and a possible waterfront stadium.
"What I am going to do hand on heart, I'm going to meet with Viv Beck's team this [coming] week, and we're going to talk to them, just a very informal chat," Molloy said.
"I'd really need to understand what they're going to do with certain assets before I could decide 'yeah, I can endorse you' ... Ports is obviously the most critical in terms of adding value to the city."
Molloy's poll numbers had fallen over the past month from 23 per cent to 14.5 per cent. Brown had overtaken him in Thursday's poll, with 18.6 per cent support - still behind the frontrunner, Efeso Collins, on 22.3 per cent. Beck was on 12.5 per cent and Craig Lord on 7.2 per cent.
Molloy told the Herald he believed he had about 75,000 votes based on a low to average voter turnout estimate of 32 per cent of the Auckland regional population for the Local Government Elections on October 8.
Molloy's estimate can be reached by taking the 2019 local government elections 35 per cent voter turnout of Auckland's population and breaking it down by Molloy's approximate 15 per cent of decided voters in Thursday's poll.
"They're big numbers for an established party, but huge for a non-aligned independent. That's why they all want my vote," Molloy said.
Pollster and commentator David Farrar's company Curia Market Research conducted Thursday's mayoral poll and says a potential Molloy endorsement of Beck would change the campaign dynamics.
"It would be a significant boost because the danger for Viv in the campaign would be if people think you can't win, then people don't like to back someone they don't think can win. So it certainly would be very helpful," Farrar said.
"I think the most useful thing is if he does that the media reaction puts Viv back into contention. I don't mean she's not in contention but obviously in our poll she's a bit behind, so if he came out and endorsed her I would expect it would help her as a three-person race."
However, Farrar said it would be unrealistic to think all of Molloy's support will simply jump to Beck based off a public endorsement.
"They're your supporters, not your followers, so you never get all of them there," Farrar said.
"His profile was somewhat different to Viv Beck's. He is more the sort of outsider coming in with no experience whereas Viv is more someone who's dealt with council and is presenting differently. So I think it's definitely beneficial to Viv Beck if he endorses her."
Molloy said to endorse Beck he would ideally want an ultimatum given to the Ports to downsize their footprint to only occupy the container terminal on Fergusson Wharf - a third of what it currently has.
"The rest of it has to be handed over to the city within a maximum of say three or four years, develop it from there. It's just a matter of debate - how do you develop it?
''My mission's obviously for a stadium with a small cultural centre attached. Some sort of aquatic facility, which only really means access to the harbour. I wouldn't endorse any candidate that wouldn't embrace that."
Based on Beck's former comments around the Ports it would appear she is broadly in line with freeing up the Auckland Council-owned waterfront land to different public use.
"We need to extract maximum value from Ports of Auckland and set a time limit – I'd give 10 years – to have a viable alternative for the port in place," Beck said in a June 11 op-ed in the Herald.
"The land must remain in public ownership and deliver a much higher return for Aucklanders."
In 2019, Beck wrote another opinion piece in favour of the development of the Ports' land.
But Molloy says, even if Beck is in line with his ambitions for the waterfront land, an endorsement may not come if he thinks she can't win in the October 8 election.
"It may well be a case where I look at a person and go 'yeah I like that, I can do that', but if I'm not convinced they can win I'm not going to endorse them," Molloy said.
Beck's campaign team was contacted for comment.
Molloy's endorsement seems to be relegated to either Beck or other centre-right candidate Wayne Brown, whose move into second in Thursday's Ratepayers' Alliance-Curia poll instigated Molloy's shock exit from the race.
In May, Brown said he will demand the Ports of Auckland pay Council $400 million a year in ground rent to free up the land for better uses than storing imported cars.
But a spokesperson for the Brown campaign said he was not aware of any plans to meet with Molloy to discuss a potential endorsement.
In contrast, Molloy will definitely not be endorsing Collins, who has been endorsed by the Labour Party.
In his exit press conference at his Ponsonby campaign headquarters on Friday afternoon, Molloy said his decision to bow out of the Mayoral race was out of "nightmare" fears Collins will win in October.
"If we'd left our name in the ring beyond 12pm today, I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't be orchestrating the result. And God forbid there is one result that none of us want to live with, that is literally a nightmare," Molloy said.
"I thought that we had a stare down from the centre-right candidates that ended up being a bit like Princess Diana's marriage, it was a bit crowded at times.
''I decided that I was the person who, having tried to stare them all down, I'd step away to leave another candidate to hopefully prevail and do the right thing by the city."
The deadline for all candidates to nominate themselves for New Zealand's 2022 Local Government Elections was noon Friday.
A large plume from Whakaari/White Island this morning prompted speculation of an eruption. Video / Moxi Cafe