Election results that really surprised you?

[LDCaerdydd]

Lib Dems going backwards in terms of seats in 2010.

Labour only loosing one seat in the 2016 National Assembly election.

[beastofbedfordshire]

Not the referendum per say, but Leave winning in Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield was a bit of a surprise.

[Deleted]

Ruth winning in Edinburgh Central.

[Andrew_S]

Mar 8, 2018 13:23:48 GMT LDCaerdydd said:

Lib Dems going backwards in terms of seats in 2010.

Labour only loosing one seat in the 2016 National Assembly election.

Yes, I was surprised when Labour won Rochdale in 2010 after everything that happened during the campaign.

[tiberius]

Mar 8, 2018 16:09:45 GMT Andrew_S said:

Mar 8, 2018 13:23:48 GMT LDCaerdydd said:

Lib Dems going backwards in terms of seats in 2010.

Labour only loosing one seat in the 2016 National Assembly election.

Yes, I was surprised when Labour won Rochdale in 2010 after everything that happened during the campaign.

It all comes down to increased inefficiency in the Lib Dem vote, no?
Where they did they gain the most votes % wise, but failed to elect an MP?

[iain]

Mar 8, 2018 16:13:35 GMT tiberius said:

Mar 8, 2018 16:09:45 GMT Andrew_S said:

Yes, I was surprised when Labour won Rochdale in 2010 after everything that happened during the campaign.

It all comes down to increased inefficiency in the Lib Dem vote, no?
Where they did they gain the most votes % wise, but failed to elect an MP?

I’d guess Ashfield.

[Deleted]

When my mum lost her council seat by one vote in 2010. It was a shit year and it was gonna be close but no one expected it that close. Not even the winner who quit 18 months in. It was a shock to the system. She'd been a councillor since 1988. I still remember that one voter who wouldn't come put even at 9.30 at night and the look on my sisters face when I came home from school.

It gave us a good kick though to sort ourselves out and we had some of the best campaigns following that.

[Devil Wincarnate]

I have to go with the Lib Dems in 2010.  I remember seeing the exit poll and thinking "this is total nonsense".

If we're talking about from the start of a campaign to the end, I remember being certain that Stoiber would beat Schroeder in 2002 at the start of the campaign.

[robbienicoll]

I was also fully expecting an SNP majority on the constituencies alone in 2016. I had a rough outline that if they would lose out in Orkney, Shetland, Eastwood and the three southern constituencies, which would deliver a majority of 1, possibly to be extended by the list. This was early days in my interest in psephology and I like to think I'll be more accurate in 2021.

As for others: Edinburgh South being the only Labour constituency in Scotland to not fall to the SNP. I did think the landslide would be significant, but had either East Renfrewshire or Glasgow North East as the 'last ones standing' as opposed to the most vulnerable marginal going into the election. Also there being no majority councils on the mainland anywhere in Scotland last May.

None of these come close to Barrow and Furness remaining Labour in 2017. If I had had to stake my family's life upon a change of hands in any seat (Clacton being the only other one) I would've chosen that one. 

[Deleted]

Perth & North Perthshire really surprised me last year; considering how easily the Conservatives won other Scottish seats which should have been far harder to win in theory.
Lanark & Hamilton East also astonished me.

Going back I believed in 2015 right up until the exit poll came out that the SNP were being overstated. I honestly expected the Lib Dems to cling onto my home constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and also thought Charles Kennedy was safe.

[Khunanup]

Mar 8, 2018 16:54:50 GMT @barnabymarder said:

The Labour gain in Portsmouth South last year I never saw coming. Canterbury was also a huge surprise. Even though I'm fairly well-adjusted politically after more than 40 years in the Labour Party, results which take me by surprise are still fairly thick on the ground.

The LD gain in Solihull in 2005 was also rather off the wall. There are plenty of other examples in other elections.

Hardly anyone did, including your new MP! We knew we weren't going to win on the day but Labour being able to surge enough to actually win was a shock. I was at my count in Fareham when I was text what was going on and I had to ring back to talk it though because I couldn't believe it.

Solihull was a shock to most people but for those in the know in the campaign department of the Lib Dems and their confidents it was no surprise at all...

Ed Balls losing in 2015 was a shock for me, likewise Naomi Long in Belfast East in 2010, an early highlight on a disappointing night for us.

[swanarcadian]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the 2017 general election in its entirety:  Labour getting 40% of the vote with Jeremy Corbyn as its leader, even taking into account the failings of the Conservative campaign (we still polled 42.4%, our highest score for a generation).

On a constituency level, Solihull in 2005 and Edinburgh Central in 2016 (I hadn't even included a poll option for Con gain on that thread and couldn't understand why Ruth had gone for it in the first place).

Labour's most surprising gain in 1997 was probably Castle Point or Romford; in 2015 it was either Ilford North or Chester.  The Conservatives' most surprising gains in 1983 were probably Bradford North and Nottingham North.

[pragmaticidealist]

As far as parliamentary by-elections go, Bradford West 2012 stands out as the most shocking in my time following politics. Yes, it didn't have the longer term effects that Orpington 1962 and Bermondsey 1983 did, but it came during what probably remains our best period in the national opinion polls since the autumn of 2007.

2010 general election - as mentioned the exit poll itself was a shock. Then you had Lembit Opik's defeat in Montgomeryshire on a huge swing, which pretty much confirmed that the Lib Dems were not going to reach 80-100 seats. Tooting was a shock in a very weird way - as in when I heard ~19,000 votes being read out for the Tory candidate I figured that we'd lost it, on the basis that it was more votes than Khan had achieved previously. I punched the air with joy when Khan's total was read out. Then of course there was Belfast East and us holding Edgbaston.

2015 general election - er, the exit poll again. But even on the exit poll I thought that the Lib Dems would hold both Twickenham and Bath. Various Scottish results were surprisingly in their scale if not in the actual winner. Most surprising results in Lab-Con battles were probably Gower and Ilford North.

2017 general election - John Curtice and co again. Gaining Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Glasgow North East, holding Barrow-in-Furness, getting an absolute landslide win in Hove stand out. Maybe Goldsmith getting back in Richmond Park, especially in the context of the wider London picture. Salmond and Robertson losing wasn't overly shocking - their wins in 2015 were pretty mild for that election. 

[Deleted]

Mar 8, 2018 17:10:55 GMT Khunanup said:

Mar 8, 2018 16:54:50 GMT @barnabymarder said:

The Labour gain in Portsmouth South last year I never saw coming. Canterbury was also a huge surprise. Even though I'm fairly well-adjusted politically after more than 40 years in the Labour Party, results which take me by surprise are still fairly thick on the ground.

The LD gain in Solihull in 2005 was also rather off the wall. There are plenty of other examples in other elections.

Hardly anyone did, including your new MP! We knew we weren't going to win on the day but Labour being able to surge enough to actually win was a shock. I was at my count in Fareham when I was text what was going on and I had to ring back to talk it though because I couldn't believe it.

Solihull was a shock to most people but for those in the know in the campaign department of the Lib Dems and their confidents it was no surprise at all...

Ed Balls losing in 2015 was a shock for me, likewise Naomi Long in Belfast East in 2010, an early highlight on a disappointing night for us.

I'm glad someone mentioned Naomi that was an amazing result

[swanarcadian]

In a way Portsmouth South was not so much a surprise in retrospect.  Had Bonner Pink not died before the 1987 general election, Mike Hancock would never have been in a position to win it in the first place and it would have undoubtedly have ended up being held by Labour between 1997 and 2005 (possibly 2010).  Following Hancock's legal battle and departure from the scene, you could say things have reverted to what could have been.

[greenhert]

In the 2015 general election (where I was a candidate), and the 2017 general election (where I was a vote counter), I was surprised by the following:

2015: Conservatives gaining Gower, Vincent Cable losing Twickenham, the Green vote decreasing in Norwich South.
2017: Labour gains of Portsmouth South and Canterbury, Ashfield nearly being captured by the Conservatives (it was at that moment I knew the Conservatives had lost their majority).

[johnloony]

I think that my shock, annoyance and bewilderment at the fact that Mrs May called an unnecessary general election which we did not need or want, completely overwhelmed any sense of surprise (good or bad) that I would otherwise have had at individual constituency results in 2017 like Kensington, Canterbury, the big Labour majorities in Hove and Bristol West (etc) or the many Conservative gains in Scotland.

The election of Trümp: right up to the last few hours, I firmly believed that Clinton would win, and by a substantial margin. Not just because I wanted her to, but because I had been following the opinion polls in the key swing states which still indicated clear leads in most of the necessary places, and not just a lead of a few % in the popular vote.

The EU referendum: I always believed, right up to the last moment, that there would be a big swing back to the status quo, and that Remain would win big (something like 58-42). I was actually quite relaxed and calm about the whole thing because I always firmly believed that we (Leave) would lose. It is psychologically better to be on the losing side in a hopeless battle than to be nervous on a knife-edge where you just don't know how it will go. For that reason, I was overwhelmed with surprise as well as delight when it became clear, at about 4am, that Leave was going to win.

George Galloway winning Bradford West in 2012.

The huge majority in the Newbury by-election in 1993.

[johnloony]

Conservative hold Eastbourne in 1997.
Lib Dem gain Redcar in 2010.
Yes not winning the Western Isles in the Scottish independence referendum.

[gwynthegriff]

Mar 8, 2018 18:56:24 GMT pragmaticidealist said:

2010 general election - as mentioned the exit poll itself was a shock. Then you had Lembit Opik's defeat in Montgomeryshire on a huge swing,

Not sure anybody* in the Lib Dems, nor anybody* in Wales, was overly surprised by Lembit's demise.


* By "anybody" I include the politically engaged; I exclude the deluded.

[Deleted]

I was surprised that the 2014 referedum was as close as it was. I didn't expect Yes to get more than about 40%, and thought there was a reasonable chance that it could end up closer to 35%.