Perhaps the burden of maintaining a presence outside the early voting centre on Bentinck Street has left candidates time to focus on little else, but there seems to have been a dramatic drop-off in funding announcements and election promises in the past seven days.

Not that we're complaining.

Outside of politics, it has also been a very big week in local and national news so the local state election battle has slipped a little from the collective consciousness, but it's sure to ramp up again as we enter the final few days.

Maybe the catalyst will be a hastily arranged candidates' forum booked at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre next Wednesday, March 20.

The forum will start at 7.30pm, giving working people who were unable to attend last week's Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association forum the chance to get there and hear from the candidates.

While details are still being finalised, there will also be an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates themselves, putting them on the spot and seeing how they react under pressure.

One telling question for candidates - and one that might reveal more about their politics than any amount of rhetoric - would the simple question of their preferred premier, Gladys Berejiklian or Michael Daley.

This newspaper asked that very question in a Q&A to each candidate (with the results to be published online over the weekend) and some struggled to give a clear answer.

Of course, the question was a gimme for Beau Riley (Labor) and Paul Toole (Nationals), while Keep Sydney Open's Timothy Hansen's passionate opposition to Sydney's lockout laws left him with no choice to support Mr Daley.

Curiously, The Greens' David Harvey gave the response of "neither", despite his own how-to-vote flyers preferencing Mr Riley and the Labor Party at number two.

Michael Begg (Sustainable Australia) chose Mr Daley without any real conviction while Brenden May (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers), whose answer might be the most interesting, has not responded to our questions.

Next Wednesday night's forum might be just the chance Mr May - and the community he hopes to represent -  needs.