Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s chief press secretary Glyn Jones says Barack Obama clearly has a lot of support in New Zealand.

“It seems a vast majority of New Zealanders love Obama. He’s a black president and also a Pacific president.”  

Jones says there will be less disruption for New Zealand in terms of fair trade if Obama stays in power but it won’t have a dramatic difference if Romney is elected.

“There will be uncertainty with a changeover.”

Jones says we should expect the hardening of foreign policy with the election of Mitt Romney. It should not change New Zealand’s position on old issues such as nuclear as people here don’t want to revisit those ideas.

“Romney is untested. How he performs depends on his cabinet.”

On superstorm Sandy, Jones says Obama handled it well.

“It was better than Bush handled Katrina. That was a pretty easy lesson to learn.”