23 Jul 2009

Brown leads Banks in super mayor poll - just

3:26 pm on 23 July 2009

Auckland City mayor John Banks has been pipped by Manukau's mayor Len Brown in a poll to see who Aucklanders would like to lead the new super-city.

The UMR Research poll asked 482 Aucklanders to make a direct comparison between Mr Banks and Mr Brown.

The result was 35% preferring Mr Brown and 34% Mr Banks.

John Banks has announced he will run for the mayoralty and Len Brown expects to make a decision within a few weeks.

In a separate question, the poll asked people to chose between Mr Banks and Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee. In that contest, Mr Banks was the clearly preferred choice.

Mr Banks led earlier polls but says he's unfazed by the latest result, given there's a long way to go until a mayor is chosen and up to 30 candidates are likely to stand.

The poll was conducted between 18 June and 6 July and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.