11:51am Friday UK Labour has gained a single-member seat from the Scottish National Party at a Scottish parliamentary by-election. Labour’s vote share was down 2.0% since the 2021 Scottish election to 31.6%, but the SNP was down 16.8% to 29.4%. The far-right Reform came third with 26.1% (new) and the Conservatives were down 11.5% to 6.0%. Scotland uses a mixture of single-member seats and proportional representation to elect its 129 MPs. The SNP is in a minority government supported by the Greens. The next Scottish election is due by May 2026.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
The South Korean presidential election was held Tuesday using first past the post. The previous president of the right-wing People Power Party, Yoon Suk Yeol, had been impeached and removed for declaring martial law in December, so this election was held about two years early. The centre-left Democratic nominee, Lee Jae-myung, defeated PPP’s Kim Moon-soo by a 49.4-41.2 margin with 8.3% for a third party candidate. At the March 2022 election, Yoon had defeated Lee by a 0.7% margin.
Lee will be sworn in as president today, without a transition period. Democrats have a large parliamentary majority after they won April 2024 parliamentary elections. Democrats have gained unified control of government until at least the 2028 parliamentary elections.
At Sunday’s Polish presidential runoff election, Karol Nawrocki, the candidate of the economically left but socially conservative Law and Justice (PiS) defeated Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of the centrist and pro-Western Civic Coalition by a 50.9-49.1 margin. In the May 18 first round, Trzaskowski won 31.4%, Nawrocki 29.5% and the far-right Confederation 14.8%. Trzaskowski had been well ahead in polls before the first round, but polls taken after the first round showed a near-tie.
In October 2023 the Civic Coalition and allies won a parliamentary majority, but the PiS held the presidency, and a presidential veto on legislation can only be overcome with a 60% majority, which the government does not have. With PiS retaining the presidency, they will continue to have veto power over legislation.
Canada, the US, the Netherlands and Portugal
The final seat count from the April 28 Canadian federal election is 169 Liberals out of 343 (up nine from 160 out of 338 in 2021), 144 Conservatives (up 25), 22 Quebec Bloc (BQ) (down ten), seven New Democratic Party (down 18) and one Green (down one). The Liberals are three seats short of a majority.
In my May 20 article, I covered two of the four recounts, one where a Liberal overturned a 44-vote BQ lead to win by just one vote, and the other that confirmed a narrow Liberal win over the Conservatives. In the remaining two recounts, the Conservatives overturned a 12-vote Liberal lead in one seat to win by 12 votes, and the Conservatives won another seat by just four votes, with their margin reduced from 77 votes on the original count.
Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill (BBB)” passed the US House of Representatives by just a 215-214 margin on May 22. At the November 2024 elections, Republicans won the House by 220-215. Since then, two Republicans who resigned were replaced in special elections on April 1. In March two Democrats died and another died on May 21. Special elections to replace them have not yet been held, with the earliest scheduled for September. Republicans thus currently have a 220-212 House majority. Had these three Democrats still been alive, the BBB may have failed.
Trump’s net approval in Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls has recovered from its low in late April. His net approval was -9.7 in late April, but is now -3.7, with 50.2% disapproving and 46.5% approving. The stock market’s recovery from Trump’s tariff chaos in early April has helped Trump.
The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV withdrew from the governing coalition owing to disputes over immigration policy. A new election will probably be held in October. The Netherlands uses national proportional representation without a threshold to elect its MPs.
The Portuguese parliamentary election was held on May 18 using PR by region. Four of the 230 seats were reserved for expatriate Portuguese and were not counted on election night. With these seats now included, results were 91 seats for the conservative AD (up 11 since 2024), 60 for the far-right Chega (up 10) and 58 for the centre-left Socialists (down 20).
Would you know where I could find the regional breakdowns of Lee Jun-seok’s vote?
IMHO, Lee should be impeached and removed from office for undermining Yoon during his entire presidency. He only did this to become president now. He is another Moon Jae In. left wing. We should reconsider our support for SK, and I hope the US does the same.
Kim will be smiling NOTB.
Hi Daniel,
I am interested in the data. I have no view on the result. While watching last night I was observing some exit poll demographic data, that was interesting. I can see regional data for the two main candidates and would like to find regional data on the other candidates.
If you know where to find it that would be good.
In relation to the result,
It wasn’t a particularly a policy heavy election. If you combine the vote of the two conservative aspirants it was quite a close election re: left/right divide.
The campaign and result was obviously heavily influenced by recent events, but there were also other factors.
Ultimately the people of South Korea have spoken, and whatever the outcome it is in Australia’s best interest to continue a close friendship with the ROK.
ISAAK @ #1 Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 – 12:36 pm
Well, there’s this from Wikipedia so far.
Blue = Lee Jae-myung (Democratic/Liberal)
Red = Kim Moon-soo (People Power/Conservative)
It does look very regionally divided, although oddly between East and West rather than North and South.
Oh, I misread. I see you mean the Reform candidate, Lee Jun-seok
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_South_Korean_presidential_election#Major_candidates
It seems that he didn’t get above 10% of the vote in any region, his best one was Seoul with 9.9% of the vote.
Thank Kirksdale,
The East West split between the two majors has been around forever.
Daegu and surrounds being the most “red” and Gwangju and surrounds being the most “blue”. Busan used to be deep red, but has been a bit of a swing region for 10 or so years. Perhaps similar to a bellwether area.
One of the Seoul regions for Lee Junseok, probably were his parliamentary seat is makes sense. Perhaps near areas of relative youth. Im curious about his vote share outside Seoul, and Seoul Surrounds. Daegu and Busan. I am assuming his Gwanju vote share and Jeolla regions was probably his lowest, but it’d be interesting.
He’s 40, so Im guessing he’ll make another run in future.
ISAAK @ #NaN Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 – 3:51 pm
Looking at the Wiki page again with the link I posted, 3 maps have just been uploaded that show the strongest areas of votes for Lee Jae-myung, Kim Moon-soo and Lee Jun-seok, if that helps.
I spoke to soon.
I can see some of the data on the page you sent after.
I’ll have a look at the NEC to see if there are further breakdowns.
It’s interesting.
Thanks
It aligns mostly with my prior predictions. Sejong, and Jeju result for him is probably the only real “surprise”.
Kirsdarke
AB: Trump’s net approval in Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls has recovered from its low in late April. His net approval was -9.7 in late April, but is now -3.7, with 50.2% disapproving and 46.5% approving. The stock market’s recovery from Trump’s tariff chaos in
It is abomination that Trump approval rating is 46.5% after all he has done in 4 months.
It appears that Americans want to suffer even more for their dear leader/ King. even after open corruption by him and all the DOGE rampage he has done.
Trump is fooling Americans and the rest of the world is fooling Trump because they figured out that he is a TACO.
As I noted on the other thread, I find it archly amusing that (at least by our arbitrary convention that puts north at the top of the screen) the vote in Korea is literally split left versus right. It’s like a visual metaphor.
Ven @ #NaN Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 – 4:24 pm
Well, it took until October 1929 for the crash that caused the Great Depression to happen after Hoover got in in March, then he made it worse with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, so there’s still probably a lot left to play out this year.
Or it can just pretty much bump around forever and nothing actually matters anymore, who knows?
The US Media is probably even worse than it was in 2003-04 when they were in full support of Dubya’s War on Terror. Pretty much every interview with a Republican is basically them simpering before a loudmouthed arrogant prick being like “How dare you question us?! Praise Be To God-King Presidentrump!” and them being like “Yessir, yesmaam, please don’t throw me into the oubliette?” while most of the Democrats are weak and worthless.
Speaking of that, there’s also the Primaries for the New York Mayoral candidate being held tomorrow. It does seem to be a close race between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani according to polls. Plus they use Preferential Voting for that, so that should be interesting to see how that plays out.
Noting the above map of Korea’s election results, the two south-western Cholla provinces did their usual trick of utterly defying their south-eastern foes in the two Gyongsang provinces – the home of a succession of post-war dictators. In nearly 10 years of teaching in South Cholla, it never ceased to amaze me the extent of regional differences. The Cholla people have a history of being discriminated against and had even more reason to feel aggrieved following the Gwangju Massacre of 1980 whereby 2 parachute battalions from Gyongsang slaughtered democracy protesters. The museum honouring the fallen of that massacre displays a giant military boot. Says it all, really. Democracy has enriched Korea – despite its hierarchical Confucian past – and long may it prosper.
A blue wave is a comin’ — Dem romps in a SC special election
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/6/3/2325879/-A-blue-wave-is-a-comin-Dem-romps-in-a-SC-special-election
“the previous Democratic incumbent won this seat by 20 points in 2022, so this was generally solid blue turf. Still, apparently VP Harris only won this seat by about 5 points last year.
Still, this is SC — not CA, not New York. And the Democrat won by a whopping 41 points”
Ven @ #15 Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 – 5:13 pm
I think the biggest upcoming test for the Democrats will be the Virginia and New Jersey elections in November this year.
If they don’t make massive gains there then I honestly don’t know what to say, other than I guess they like God-King Presidentrump after all and what his Republican courtiers are doing.
If Korea ever united (increasingly unlikely) the electoral maps could be insane.
Like the East-West divide in present-day Germany, but worse.
Well, of course Poland’s geographic divide is equally stark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Polish_presidential_election
You can literally go on that map and trace the outline of the pre-1914 border between the Russian and German Empires.
The dead hand of history is a hard one to shake off, particularly for countries of an older vintage than our settler-colonialist outfits. If you ever want to amuse yourself, look at a map of the 2022 French Presidential election superimposed on a map of the Huguenot population in the time of Henry IV. As the meme of Pam from “The Office” goes, they’re the same picture.
Thanks Adrian for the roundup. On this aspect of the Big Bad Debt Bill passing:
” In March two Democrats died and another died on May 21. Special elections to replace them have not yet been held, with the earliest scheduled for September. Republicans thus currently have a 220-212 House majority. Had these three Democrats still been alive, the BBB may have failed.”
I note that all three Democrat Reps who dies in office were over 70, one a heavy smoker. The habit of Democrat party politicians staying in office too long, and the party being too deferential to them to allow them being dis-endorsed, comes back to bite the Democrats once again. This isn’t respect for seniors. It is an out of touch leadership clinging to power. Biden was an example of a wider problem.
Thank you Adrian for the roundup, and thanks to those who pointed out about the South Carolina district 50 special election. Yes, this was a huge swing to the Democrats compared to the 2022 election; however, only 14% bothered to vote and most elections in this district are uncontested. This result in South Carolina doesn’t suggest that there is anything like a ‘blue wave’ happening yet, and the recovery in support for the current US President in opinion polls is better evidence than ‘special elections’ where almost nobody bothers to vote.
Half back-
I was busan and sometimes Daegu based, not a teacher however.
It’s an intriguing country re: regional differences.
I think it’d be useful if one day the transport infrastructure between the east and west was improved.
Oh, my mistake from my post yesterday. The NY Mayoral Democratic Primary debates were today, the actual primary is being held on 24 June.
Isaak,
Sorry to be so lax in replying. As we both know, Korea is a mountainous nation where people live like sardines along the river valleys. It’s a well-told story that the dictator Park Chung-hee built the road between Seoul and Busan during the ’60s despite opposition from detractors who noted that Korea had a mere few thousand registered vehicles at the time and knew little about driving or mechanical devices. ‘Build it and trade and commerce will come’ was his motto. He was so right! And only a dictator could have implemented such a visionary plan. Today Korea exports cars galore and is the greatest tunnel builder on Earth. You say poor East-West transport infrustructure? You have to appreciate there was nothing in the 1960s. The country was utterly ruined. No infrastructure, no comms to speak of and all the trees were chopped down for heating and rudimentary housing – until Park did amazing things with reafforestation. A friend relates the tale of her mother being asked about the effect on her during the uncivil war. ‘What war?’ was her reply. She lived in a remote valley with no comms and she only left her village on market days. It was that backward! Never underestimate the Koreans who found themselves free of Chinese and Japanese servitude in the ’50s for the first time in modern history.
South Korea is doomed
https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk
Geoffrey,
Your video is so right. Depopulation in Korea is a huge problem, but it failed to identify the underlying problem. The Koreas are the most Confucianised societies, even more so than China. Confucianism at heart is a system of hierarchy, where males are superior to females, first borns are superior to younger siblings, older people are superior to those younger etc. As such, it’s a system so conservative as to prevent change of any sort and results in a culture of bullying. What’s a youngest daughter of a family of 8 children to do? What’s a male conscript inducted a week after his ‘superior’ of the previous week to do? What’s a new male worker to do when his boss asks for more unpaid overtime or unused holiday entitlements or compulsory attendance at ‘soju’ parties into the late hours. Korea is the most pressurised and bullied society and it starts at school. Your final year of secondary schooling is so crammed with learning that private tutoring after or before school hours is virtually compulsory. Mums urge their children to study every waking hour and the stress drives many kids to suicide. A good final year school result opens so many doors. It determines what uni you can attend and the top employers only recruit graduates from certain unis. Your results at uni matter little, only the fact that you graduated from an esteemed uni.
So, what’s a low-born female to do? Answer: don’t marry, snub men, chase their own career dreams and, above all, don’t have children. And, if possible, emigrate to any western society. This is all made possible by the need for two incomes to afford the ever-increasing cost of apartments. In short, women’s empowerment is the result of western-style capitalism – pure and simple …. and Korean men are crying into their soju. Here endeth the lesson.
The Canadian Liberals are actually 4 seats short of a majority as a Liberal was elected Speaker.
The Dutch election is almost certain to be held on Wednesday 29th October. Until then both Government and Parliament are in ‘caretaker’ mode.
Trumps “BBB” will undergo significant revision in the Senate. Meanwhile 3 GOP House members (including Majorie Taylor Green) have said if they had actually read it first they would have voted against it as it contains things they are implacably against.
@Geoffrey: It’s interesting that the video doesn’t address even once the concept of immigration as it applies to the problem of an aging society. Australia’s TFR has been below replacement (2.1 children per woman) since about 1975, even earlier than South Korea, so we should also be a massively aged society, right? Wrong. While Australia’s median age has increased from 32yo to 38yo over the past 35 years, this pales next to (for example) Japan, which has seen its median age increase from 37yo to 49.7yo over the same time period.
The difference? Japan has virtually no immigration, while Australia has a consistent stream of immigrants from all over the world wanting to join us. Immigrants tend to be younger, more ambitious and active people, meaning that even a relatively modest intake of immigrants will slow the aging of society, while a larger intake could plausibly reverse it entirely.
And the rise of Trumpism in the U.S. is likely to make at least some changes – the wholesale rejection/deportation of immigrants which Trump is undertaking will certainly scare at least some potential immigrants away. Pity for America that the ones sent elsewhere will be the more intelligent & resourceful potential immigrants, leaving the US immigrant pool even shallower.
Vive l’immigration!
@ChrisC:
MTG and the other whackos will have the chance to put their votes where their mouths are – the bill will almost certainly be amended heavily in the Senate, which means that the House will need to vote to accept/reject the amendments. If they’re just bloviating, then they’ll vote for it on some pretext or another. If not, then Mike Johnson will have even more trouble conjuring up a majority to support it.
Halfback
You’re doing very well explaining some of the unique aspects of Korea to others who have never lived there or even visited. most foreigners bypass Korea or just pop in for a few days on the way to Japan or elsewhere.
Korea is a very tough place to live but I do love it and in some personal ways tied to it.
Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election for the Scottish Parliament
Changes from 2021 election, which was a resounding win for SNP with Labour in 3rd place behind Conservatives:
SNP 29.4% (-16.8)
Lab 31.6% (-2.0)
Reform 26.1% (+26.1)
Con 6.0% (-17.5)
Scot Grn 2.6% (+2.6)
Lib Dem 2.0% (-0.8)
Lab gain from SNP with Reform a close 3rd. Hailed as a shock win for Labour, but with hindsight Labour should never have been allowed to get away with that level of expectation management that the media lazily swallowed (aided by SNP claiming it was a 2-horse race between them and Reform; and by the Lab candidate not attending the debate).
After all, whilst Labour’s vote didn’t collapse, it still went down 2%. AND that was from an already very poor result in 2021 where they came 3rd across Scotland behind both SNP and Conservative.
Had this been a Westminster by-election, I’m sure the outcome would have been worse for Labour – but there is a lot of dissatisfaction for the old and tired SNP who have been in gov in Scotland for the last 18 years now.
Yes, ISAAC, Korea and its people have a unique charm, but it’s hard to break historical prejudices. I lost my heart to a Korean woman who found it so difficult to accept social equality with me. However, I could never live forever in Korea and, likewise, she could never break her ties to her family. The relationship was doomed from the start, but it shows their unbreakable bond to family. Bloodlines based on male primogeniture (male first born) has relegated daughters to the status of servants and nursing aides to elderly parents. No blood relationship equates to an aversion to adoption, yet Koreans find the extent of western adoption in previous generations utterly humiliating. Hence social isolation for single mothers as if it’s entirely their fault and women are blamed for any social ill and often ignored. A case in point: most female neighbours are referred to as ‘Min-ji’s mother’ or ‘Dong-won’s mother’, never their own name. Many families have what’s known as a ‘ho-ju’, or a much esteemed book of births that can date back for 50 generations or more. Until recent times, only male births were recorded!!! My female ‘friend’ had no idea of her birth date and when applying for a passport to accompany me for a holiday in Oz, she was allowed to nominate a date. That situation was so common until recently. Modernity can be a painful process, but hats off to the Korean work ethic that transformed a backward and repressed society to a modern thriving democracy in just one or two generations – like Singapore.
I’ll post this here as it’s UK Election (well England) related following the May local elections.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c365y0190l7o
In some councils Reform is the largest party so will need votes from other parties to get things done if they don’t want everything voted down.
But Reform don’t have (m)any local policies (they basically campaigned on national issues and generalities) so other parties are reluctant to make even informal arrangements let alone go into coalition with them because they don’t know what they are buying into.
“They haven’t got a local prospectus and that was part of the problem,” said Adam Kent, Tory group leader on Worcestershire County Council.
“They didn’t stand on any local issues. It was on national politics. How can you go into coalition with somebody if you don’t even know what they stand for?”
It’s also hard for officials – even where Reform form the majority – to write policy papers etc because they don’t know what Reform wants to do so have nothing to go on. It might only be June but work on 2026/27 Budgets will need to start soon.
Even in the councils they control they are having issues in having to cancel meetings because their councillors don’t want to sit on committees.
Also complaints from Reform councillors about how little a back bench councillor gets paid (it’s not a full time job) and are angry about people in their wards contacting them about all sorts of issues like their bins not being emptied, pot holes that need filling and all the usual local government miscellaneous issues.
It’s clear they never expected to do as well as they did so are woefully unprepared.
The by-elections will start to come thick and fast in the next few months.
“The by-elections will start to come thick and fast in the next few months.”
And Reform will probably win most of them, with better informed candidates. Though how many there will really be, it may be more likely that individuals of the type you describe will gladly take the pay packet whilst carrying on with life as usual as much as possible – though they would then probably come under pressure from colleagues to either pull their finger out or resign and let someone else have a go.
But yes, no doubt Reform will make a lot of mistakes in this first wave of local election victories and majority wins on councils. From which they may have a dip before – probably, if civil wars are averted – coming back somewhat stronger.
I think it’s possible that Lib Dems might win the ‘national equivalent vote share’ at 2026 or 2027 local elections. Conversely, they will probably not make the equivalent level of gains at the Scottish Parliament election next year although they’re bound to make a plausible level of gains in Scotland and Wales given their lowly results in 2021 (enough to support their PR efforts anyway).