---
title: "Three Vancouver Mayoral Candidates Push Back on Spoiler Label, Two Days Before the Vote"
description: "Kareem Allam, Rebecca Bligh, and Colleen Hardwick each said they are not splitting any vote as the Vancouver municipal election closes in on Saturday, Oct. 17."
canonical_url: "https://voche.me/news/mayoral-candidates-reject-spoiler-label-october-15"
last_updated: "2026-10-17T19:03:19.723Z"
---

With two days left before election day, three of the five major candidates for Vancouver mayor each said they are not a spoiler in the race. The claim came from The Canadian Press on Thursday, Oct. 15, drawing on separate interviews with the candidates.

Recent polls have shown incumbent Ken Sim and two-term Green councillor Pete Fry as the two candidates leading the race. Some observers said the remaining three candidacies could split votes. Kareem Allam, Rebecca Bligh, and Colleen Hardwick each rejected that framing.

Allam, running with the Vancouver Liberals (the party is not connected to the federal Liberal Party), said in a Tuesday interview that polls are an unreliable guide at the municipal level. "The pollsters don't always get it right. Municipal government is also the hardest level to poll. It's got its tricks and nuances, especially in an at-large system," he told The Canadian Press. He said he believed his campaign was drawing support from both Sim and Fry voters.

Bligh, the Vote Vancouver candidate and a two-term former City Councillor, said polling did not change how she ran her campaign. She described herself to The Canadian Press as a candidate running to govern for what she called Vancouver's ignored middle class. "It's anyone's race," she said in a Wednesday interview.

Hardwick, running with TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, framed her candidacy as something separate from the left-right question the polls raise. "The question is not left or right. The question is about who we are serving at city hall," she told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. She called the public safety plebiscite on the ballot a populist election tactic.

Fry, the Green Party of Vancouver candidate, told The Canadian Press on Tuesday that he has benefited from the progressive field getting smaller. OneCity Vancouver's William Azaroff and COPE Vancouver's Stephanie Allen each withdrew their mayoral candidacies during the campaign. Fry said Azaroff's withdrawal was "recognition that he was the person best suited to defeat Sim."

Sim, the incumbent seeking a second term with ABC Vancouver, told The Canadian Press on Wednesday: "We've gotten some pretty significant things done, but there's way more work to do."

The City of Vancouver told The Canadian Press that more than 103,000 people cast advance ballots, up 60 per cent from 65,000 advance voters over five days in the 2022 election.

When voters fill out their ballot on Oct. 17, they will also see two non-binding plebiscite questions. The first asks whether they support the City strengthening its laws to forbid open-air hard drug use in public spaces. The second asks whether the City should ask the province to convert portions of the old St. Paul's Hospital into a secure medical facility with more than 100 involuntary care beds.

You can read each major mayoral candidate's full profile: [Ken Sim](/candidates/ken-sim), [Pete Fry](/candidates/pete-fry), [Kareem Allam](/candidates/kareem-allam), [Rebecca Bligh](/candidates/rebecca-bligh), and [Colleen Hardwick](/candidates/colleen-hardwick). Voting day is Saturday, Oct. 17. For voting place locations, visit [/where-to-vote](/where-to-vote).

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