The safest result for John Key tomorrow is if - still a very big if - Colin Craig's Conservatives get over the 5% line.
That way, if Mr Key falls short with his three micro-supporters, he does not have to deal with Winston Peters.
He could give Christine Rankin a small portfolio outside the Cabinet under an experienced National minister's tutelage.
And if he needed only three or fewer of Mr Craig's lot for a majority, it would not matter too much if they splintered under the pressure of parliamentary politics, as novice parties have in the past.
There may be a problem sorting Mr Craig's ''bottom line'' of binding citizens-initiated referendums but there are ways of delaying by way of a full inquiry to get it right, which would mean to do it as the Swiss have done through decades of trail and error and not follow the Californians through decades of error that have tangled up administrations.
Handled skilfully, the Conservatives could be built by National into the sort of modest but durable and liveable partner the Greens are (most of the time) for Labour.
As for the alternative, the personal distance between Mr Key and Mr Peters and policy distance between National's and New Zealand First on economic, social and, now, environmental matters is so great that settling on two or three or five concessions to Mr Peters would require skill and patience.
Interestingly, Mr Key has not closed the door to Mr Peters being deputy prime minister, although that would be with half the seats Mr Peters had when deputy to Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley in 1996-98.
You can see why Mr Key has pushed for every party vote he can get.
At 46.1% average in polls up to yesterday, he has little room for the usual last-minute slippage before he needs Mr Peters or Mr Craig.
Of course, Labour has not conceded and should not.
A sudden surge for Labour in this last week might see Labour over the line.
And for all Mr Peters' distaste for the Greens, demonstrated again this week, his policy line meshes not too badly with Labour's and even with some of the Greens'.
He got on well with Helen Clark.
But there was only a smidgeon of evidence up to yesterday of a Labour surge.
The twin factors of improved middling New Zealand household finances and prospects and Mr Key's macro-personality have been working against Labour's and Mr Cunliffe's pitch to middle New Zealand.
To many in middle New Zealand, Labour is the party of the minorities, not the majority.
That leaves the Greens closing in on their target of 15% (though not quite there in the polls up until yesterday morning) but with no levers of power - 24 years after reformulating themselves from Values to Green and 15 years after clearing 5%.
And there is the puzzle of the fizzer that was to be the Internet party.
Pollsters struggle to capture the young, so maybe there is an invisible surge which we will know about only tomorrow night. But, like for Labour, there is no evidence yet.
-Colin James is a leading social and political commentator.
