Are Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party colleagues about to get a dose of the Saturday night horrors?
Probably not. In all likelihood, the Northcote electorate will still be in National's hands once all the votes have been counted in tomorrow's by-election.
For Labour to be embarrassed by the result, National will not only have to win. It will have to win big.
The inevitability of a lower voter turnout will eat up a fair chunk out of the 6,000-plus majority racked up at last year's general election by Jonathan Coleman, National's erstwhile Minister of Health.
Labour would be happy with such an outcome. National will do its best to look happy with that kind of result.
The by-election campaign has been a dull affair - a dreary mix of the insipid and the soporific.
That is not that surprising. The result will have no material impact on the current delicate balance of power in Parliament. It is also pretty ludicrous that the country's politicians - at least the ones who failed to furnish themselves with an alibi or excuse to escape a trek to Northcote - have found themselves hitting the hustings so soon after a general election and so far away from the next one.
“The magnitude of the advance vote in Northcote may indicate something is stirring in suburbia. In that vein, the words 'petrol tax' and 'voter backlash' spring to mind.
Nether has it helped that the Labour and National candidates look and sound so much alike that you could be excused thinking they have been cloned using each other's DNA.
Something out of the ordinary has emerged in the final days of campaigning, however, to break the monotony and give strategists from the main parties a bit of a fright.
We are referring to the huge surge in the number of votes cast ahead of by-election day.
The flood of early votes might turn out to be nothing more than a further sign that more and more people are preferring to vote early.
There is certainly plenty of freeboard for the number of advance votes to expand quite markedly.
The number of early votes cast nationwide in the 2017 general election was just touch under 40 per cent of the overall total votes cast.
Early voting in Northcote began on the Monday of last week. Figures supplied by the Electoral Commission show the scale of the advance vote has not only been greater than what would be expected in such a run-of-the-mill by-election. It has been significantly greater.
In the Mt Roskill by-election in 2016, just under 5,000 people cast an early vote. With advance votes still to be cast and counted today in Northcote, the tally has now topped 10,200. That is double the number cast in Mt Roskill. It is not far short of the 10,755 early votes cast in Northcote at last year's general election.
The magnitude of the advance vote in Northcote may indicate something is stirring in suburbia. In that vein, the words "petrol tax" and "voter backlash" spring to mind.
Labour is relying on Aucklanders coming to terms with the necessity of that impost on motorists, even if that acceptance is slow in coming.
What Labour most definitely did not need was for there to be a by-election that thrust the tax hike back onto the political agenda when it had at last dropped off following the announcement of the rise in the levy some weeks earlier.
It might turn out that there has been no such backlash. But the party has sure invited one.
Labour declared it was comfortable with the focus of the by-election being exclusively on local issues.
It considered it held the high ground on the two such issues that really mattered to Aucklanders - roading and housing. What matters to voters is delivery.
On a hip-pocket issue like petrol tax, Aucklanders may be justified feeling short-changed until they see some benefits. Unfortunately for Labour, the construction of transport infrastructure does not slot neatly into three-year electoral cycles.
As for housing, voters will have yet to be convinced that in respect to KiwiBuild they have not been sold a $2 billion pup.
“The notion that the surge of early votes might be the vanguard of a backlash against the Labour-led Government does not square with recent opinion polls
As for National, voters are very grumpy with Coleman exiting Parliament so soon after a general election and leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill for a by-election. But few people would cast their vote solely on that basis.
By-elections are all about punishing the party in Government - not the Opposition whose MPs are already branded as losers.
When New Zealand voters make a rush for the ballot box, it is usually ominous for Labour.
The notion that the surge of early votes might be the vanguard of a backlash against the Labour-led Government does not square with recent opinion polls, however.
Those surveys have both National and Labour securing voter backing at the same or even higher levels than occurred at last year's election.
Should Labour defy the odds and end up being an unlikely victor tomorrow night, it will be well and truly fright night in National's neck of the woods.
But there will be no lynch mob seeking the scalp of of the leader - at least not for a while.
Were Bridges dumped, it would set a standard for performance in the job which would be nigh on impossible for anyone to meet.
Bridges has been leader for barely four months. He has hardly put a foot wrong in that time. But needs to start landing some very solid punches on the three-party triumvirate running the country.
In that regard, Bridges' colleagues will be keen observers of the upcoming head-to-head clashes in Parliament between their leader and Winston Peters during the latter's six-week stint as Acting Prime Minister in Ardern's absence on maternity leave.
No-one will be keener in watching than one Judith Anne Collins.
The Crusher might have been crushed in the leadership ballot conducted by the National caucus to find the replacement for Sir Bill English.
But Collins now holds sway in the court of public opinion.
Her registering at between two per cent and four per cent as preferred prime minister in the two major television polls is hugely significant. It transforms her from being on the fringe to being a player in the mainstream.
No matter the outcome of the Northcote by-election, Bridges' leadership of the National Party has entered a new phase.
For the Leader of the Opposition, the worst job in politics looks like getting worse.
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