Numbers may not tell the full story, but they can illuminate a good part of it.
The failure of a well-funded team is the unavoidable tale told by Dunedin City Council candidate campaign spending figures, compared with results.
For the three months before the election last year, Future Dunedin team campaign costs were $158,480, including GST.
Future Dunedin also incurred advertising costs before the traditional campaign period and these did not have to be declared.
All the team had to show for this was one person elected on to the council — ticket leader Andrew Simms.
Of unsuccessful candidates for council, eight of the top 10 for the highest electoral expenses were either from Future Dunedin or had initially signed up and later left the team.
Future Dunedin did get close to getting two things it wanted.
Cr Simms was not far off being "Mayor Simms" instead and Bruce Ranga ended up just outside the 14 councillor positions available, finishing 15th.
The mayoralty went to Sophie Barker, who finished 898 votes clear of the second-placed Cr Simms once the single transferable vote (STV) calculator had gone through all its iterations.
Cr Simms was the top-polling councillor, which was not really the result he was after.
"The goal was mayor and one or two other councillors, and that didn't happen," he said.
"I'm disappointed with that result for the effort that went in."
Effort and the investment too.
Of the declared $158,480 team cost, $35,010 belonged to Cr Simms.
Adding in his own mayoral and council campaign costs brought his declared expenses to $45,628.
This was the top spend in the returns — almost $20,000 more than Ms Barker’s $26,467.78 — and he also chipped in finance for his team-mates.
Cr Simms was recorded as a donor for amounts that totalled $105,820, including $10,820 for Jo Galer and $6750 for Rachel Brazil — two candidates who withdrew from the ticket before October’s election. Otherwise, his donations to five candidates were listed as $17,650 each.
In candidates’ returns, the donations had descriptions such as Future Dunedin costs, goods and services and campaign funding.
The expenses return for Future Dunedin candidate Conrad Stedman referred explicitly to a repayment agreement.
Cr Simms said agreements varied from person to person, according to their ability to pay.
"I want to be absolutely clear that some people paid all of their own expenses and some people paid very little," he said.
"I believe if there’s somebody that I thought would be a really good councillor, but didn't necessarily have the wherewithal to mount a campaign, then I would certainly be prepared to help them."
So what went wrong?
There were too many people on the team, Cr Simms said.
"And I think we tried to be too many things to too many people.
"It was a deliberate decision, but I think it was a mistake, in hindsight.
"If I had my time again, and I went into it knowing what I know now, I'd have ... maybe a maximum of five people and I would have gone for five like-minded people."
University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis described team strategies as typically about trying to get candidates to stand out in a crowded field and to have like-minded people pursue common goals.
"It's a form of ‘political party lite’," he said.
"The problem for Future Dunedin, in my opinion, was that it was not clear what its various candidates had in common beyond wearing this label."
Once team members started rejecting the label, its meaning became more confused, he said.
Prof Geddis suggested various candidates being attached to Future Dunedin may not have been helped greatly by the advertising spend if it was unclear to voters what the team stood for.
One feature of the Dunedin electoral returns was that donations were not commonplace.
"That's probably a preferable style of politics to one where large donations buy expensive ad campaigns and candidates feel that they have to join that arms race in order to have any chance at winning."
This brings us to Ms Barker.
Her spend was not insignificant, but political commentator Bryce Edwards credited her with running a textbook grassroots campaign to unseat Jules Radich as mayor and see off Cr Simms’ challenge.
Ms Barker was sympathetic to candidates for council who lacked resources to make the necessary impact.
This was perhaps heightened in the past election when the field competing for councillor positions was an extraordinary 54.
"Having met and followed the majority of the candidates, I think it’s a real pity that some very talented people missed out due in part, I believe, to their lack of funding, and thus visibility," Ms Barker said.
"It’s really hard to stand out as a councillor candidate, especially among a huge field of candidates last election and the huge expenses of buying coverage."
She noted the impact of team tickets before — the Greater Dunedin group led by Dave Cull, who ascended to the mayoralty in 2010 and Cr Radich’s Team Dunedin group in 2022.
Both had success in bringing people on to the council.
"It’s a good way of making dollars go further, especially if there is a cohesive collective message," Ms Barker said.
A party or grouping could make it easier for people to work out who to vote for, she said.
Dr Edwards thought, nationally, the tide had turned against independents to a large degree.
"It's been fashionable for a few decades, but there's a lot more cynicism about politicians and no-one really necessarily knows what independent means any more," he said.
He was comfortable with political party involvement in local body elections.
In a piece about campaign finance and donations in major centres, Dr Edwards wrote the ability to run for office was becoming a privilege of the wealthy or the well-connected.
However, he described Dunedin as "a flicker of hope", saying big money did not guarantee victory.
"Money helps in politics, but it's not everything," Dr Edwards told the Otago Daily Times.
Voters could be turned off by a lot of money being spent on politics, he said.
Dr Edwards said campaign spending limits — such as $55,000 per individual in Dunedin — went some way to limiting any arms race, but outdated rules had not caught up with modern realities. These included the tendency now for campaigning to happen outside of the traditional campaign period.
Dr Edwards called the post-election timeline for disclosing donations an egregious failure.
"We need to know who is bankrolling the candidates that we're being presented with before we vote," he said.
"It did make sense back in the 1980s that you would aggregate your donations after the fact and publish them, but there's absolutely no reason why they can't be declared in real time these days."
"I also think that all campaigning costs should be declared, not just those before a start date of three months before an election," she said.
"It’s time to look again at the rules."
Comparing the Dunedin mayoral candidate expense returns for the past three elections does not show a big spike in 2025, although levels have increased.
The total of $215,773.74 for this year’s campaign (about $13,485.86 on average) was much heavier than 2022’s $91,935.96 (about $8357.81 on average).
In the middle was the 2019 mayoral campaign with $167,129.67 (about $11,723.55 on average).
The 2019 set of declarations was also similar to 2025’s in that both featured two campaigns above $40,000. In 2025, Benedict Ong’s $44,098.72 was just behind the amount declared by Cr Simms.
In 2019, Christine Garey’s campaign cost $54,641.56, which was covered by the Garey Family Trust and Andrew Whiley’s was worth $40,341.71.
Each election had a high number of mayoral candidates — 14 in 2019, 11 in 2022 and 16 in 2025.
Of course, the key difference last year was Cr Simms and his team hit the campaign trail early, including through a substantial advertising spend with Allied Media.
Cr Simms had been the Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board chairman, but he and his team were essentially looking to come in from the outside and so had to do what was necessary to build profile, he said.
One mayoral candidate who raised his profile creatively was Ruthven Allimrac, who assumed the character of a vampire.
Some council candidate returns indicate being part of a team increases campaigning costs.
Cr Brent Weatherall was part of Team Dunedin in 2022 and his campaign expenses then were $11,055.22, including team costs of $7421.36.
Standing as an individual last year, Cr Weatherall spent $8304.15.
Two other Team Dunedin members from 2022 — Mr Whiley and Kevin Gilbert — had a reduced spend as individual candidates last year.
They were among five councillors who lost their seats.
The team approach did not yield the desired results for Future Dunedin, but it seemed to work out well for the Green Party, helping to get Mickey Treadwell on to the council.
A group spend of $29,865.45 was allocated among four candidates, including Alan Somerville for the Otago Regional Council.
"The Ōtepoti Greens campaign was fundamentally a team effort and I don't think it would have worked any other way," Cr Treadwell said.
"By my assessment, there's still an electoral advantage to running a team, but only if your candidates are closely aligned."
Future Dunedin team expenses were split nine ways and Jarrod Hodson was one member who did not regret his involvement.
"I don't see it as a campaign that's failed," he said.
"I see it as a campaign that started early and got people talking."
Ms Galer’s spend of $38,752.73 was the highest for an unsuccessful council candidate.
"I did put a lot of advertising spend in and, yes, it was very disappointing not to get on to the council," she said.
Ms Galer said the campaign gave her a chance to advocate for city heritage.
"Our built heritage faces more challenges than it ever has — more headwinds because of new legislation coming in — and I could see this coming," she said.
Standing for council was a useful exercise, including "for the cause of trying to lift the scales from people's eyes" as to why it was so important to retain heritage, she said.
"I’m undeterred. I might stand again."
Cr Simms said he recognised he could have spent far less money than he did and achieved the same result.
He reiterated the goals were higher and not achieved.
However, his ticket was at the forefront in questioning the planned Smooth Hill landfill development and bringing more attention to flooding-related issues in South Dunedin, he said.
Last year’s campaign investment might also pay a dividend longer term.
"If you're playing a longer game ... then I think you can probably bank some of the name recognition and some of the experience [for next time]."
