It always looked fairly predictable that the Tories would win yesterday's Elgin North by-election. They had won the popular vote in the ward in May, their tails were up after winning the Moray parliamentary constituency in June, the local SNP were presumably a tad demoralised, and of course we know from long and bitter experience that Tory supporters are more likely to make it to the polling stations in low turnout local by-elections than supporters of other parties. Given all of those disadvantages, it's really quite striking just how close the SNP came to pulling it off...
Elgin City North by-election result (first preference votes) :
Conservatives 40.0% (+7.1)
SNP 38.8% (+6.1)
Labour 15.8% (+3.9)
Independent - Monaghan 5.4% (n/a)
We shouldn't get carried away by the increase in the SNP's vote, because like the other parties they benefited from the much reduced vote share for independent candidates. Nevertheless, the closeness of the result gives us a fair bit of reassurance that things have not worsened for the SNP since the general election in areas where the Tories are their main opponents. (For what it's worth, there's also no sign of any Tory bandwagon effect in the Scottish subsamples of opinion polls.) It remains to be seen what is happening in the SNP-Labour battleground areas.
One of the fascinations of local elections conducted under STV is seeing how Labour voters transfer when faced with a choice between SNP and Tory. The answer in this case was pretty evenly : Conservatives 91, SNP 90. If the SNP suffer significantly from unionist tactical voting in the next general election, it's unlikely to be in Tory-SNP marginals. I have my doubts as to whether it will happen very much even in Labour target seats, because Tory voters will surely feel increasingly conflicted about helping a left-wing Labour leadership into power.
I would never expect a Tory voter to vote Labour it would choke them. They would just vote Tory and any Independent.
ReplyDeleteIts an odd feature of STV.
ReplyDeleteTories, even with a lead in 1st preference would not be able to get two seats in this 3 member ward.
However an "independent" stands then, bizarrely, decides not to take his seat forcing a byelection. Voila - 2 Tories.
Aye they're worth watching. Lack of honest media to call them out.
ReplyDeleteTories voted labour 2nd preference in some NLC wards. Tory eliminated stage 3, transferrable votes all went to labour, labour took 3rd seat.
ReplyDeletePeople that vote for Ruth 29% Davidson apparently have a propensity for selfharm.
ReplyDeleteI think that any Labour voters given their second preference to the Tories is utterly disgusting. That half would do it...
ReplyDeletePoor nat sis not a lot going for them. The Unionist vote is increasing and a bit more of tactical voting could destroy the fash for decades....The traditional Labour Unionist vote will remain solid as they have sussed the Tartan Tories as just Tories pretending they are different....
ReplyDeleteWATP FTP GSTQ
DeleteThe above bigot impersonator is back... Always the same when he has no answers for the failing nat sis. Probably a sore erse that hails from Coatbrig.
DeleteThe troll "GWC2" calls scottish people "jocks", made death threats on this blog while posing as a Yes supporter, advocates arming Leave campaigners, arbitrary deportations and public mutilations, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial, homophobic and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister.
DeleteThe above Cox & May pervert is a Jock anti English fascist and hates the majority of the Northern Irish people....Pretends to be a leftie like his Sinn Fein pals but we Unionists know exactly what it is.....
DeleteThe troll "GWC2" calls scottish people "jocks", made death threats on this blog while posing as a Yes supporter, advocates arming Leave campaigners, arbitrary deportations and public mutilations, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial, homophobic and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister.
DeleteNat si pretend leftie and Sinn Fein IRA bum bhoy.
DeleteThe troll "GWC2" calls scottish people "jocks", made death threats on this blog while posing as a Yes supporter, advocates arming Leave campaigners, arbitrary deportations and public mutilations, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial, homophobic and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister.
DeleteThe turnout was 21%. The other 79% couldn't be bothered.
ReplyDelete