Category: British politics

Live Commentary

7:05am Wednesday Just one seat remains to be declared, in which an INDIA alliance member is currently ahead. Modi’s NDA alliance has won 293 seats, while the INDIA alliance has won 229 and leads in one. While the NDA will retain a majority (272 needed for a majority), the BJP party (240 seats) is well below the majority they easily exceeded in 2019.

10:51pm 115 of the 543 seats have now been officially declared. The NDA leads in or has won 282 seats, while the INDIA alliance leads in or has won 175 seats. The BJP itself leads in or has won 240 seats, which would be 32 short of a majority and 63 down on 2019.

7:45pm The NDA leads in 278 seats to the INDIA alliance’s 173., with the BJP alone leading in 240 seats, well short of the 272 needed for a majority. The Indian electoral commission has declared four seats. In 2019, the BJP alone won 303 seats and its alliance got 353.

5:06pm The NDA now leads in 285 seats to 167 for the INDIA alliance. Modi’s BJP party leads in 243 seats, well short of a majority in its own right.

4:36pm The NDA has slipped back to 273 seats, only barely enough for a majority, while the INDIA alliance leads in 176 seats. All 543 seats now have some counting, so the remaining seats must be going to independents and others not aligned with either alliance. Contrary to polls, this doesn’t look like a Modi landslide.

3:33pm The NDA now leads in 278 seats, to 186 for the INDIA alliance. The seats the NDA now leads in are over the 272 needed for a majority.

2:27pm The NDA is now leading in 242 seats to 144 for the INDIA alliance. Unless late counting reverses the current trends, the NDA will win decisively. I have a one-hour appointment starting at 2:30pm, so I’ll next post after that.

2:11pm BJP and allies (NDA) now leading in 223 seats, to 121 for opposition INDIA alliance.

2:06pm Bloomberg says the BJP and allies are leading in 198 seats, while Congress and allies are leading in 127 seats. 272 seats are needed for a majority.

1:59pm With results in from 339 of the 543 seats, Modi’s BJP is leading in 169 seats, while their main opponents Congress are leading in 65 seats. I’m not sure about allied parties yet.

11:50am I expect official results to appear here from 12:30pm AEST.

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, and his own website is here.

The Indian election was held in seven stages, from April 19 to June 1. No interim results have been released, with vote counting to occur today. Counting will start at 8am Indian time (12:30pm AEST). The 543 MPs are elected by first past the post. India is the world’s most populous country, having overtaken China in 2023.

The right-wing alliance (NDA) of PM Narendra Modi, who is running for a third successive term, has a high-single to double-digit lead in polls over the opposition INDIA alliance. If the election results reflect the polls, the NDA will win a decisive majority owing to the single-member system. Exit polls released after voting finished Saturday also suggest a big majority for the NDA. Modi is easily the most popular global leader in Morning Consult’s tracker of leaders’ ratings, with 74% approval and 21% disapproval.

Other upcoming elections

The European parliament election will be held from Thursday to Sunday, with vote counting starting once all countries have finished voting. The 720 seats are elected using proportional representation in each EU country. Far-right parties are expected to make gains. I will have a post on this on Sunday.

The UK general election will be held on July 4. The Guardian’s national poll aggregate has Labour on 44.7% (steady since last Thursday), the Conservatives on 23.8% (up 0.5), the far-right Refrom on 11.2% (down 0.1), the Lib Dems on 9.1% (down 0.4) and the Greens on 5.6% (down 0.4). In the last week, there was a jump from a 14 to a 20-point Labour lead in an Opinium poll with other polls little changed.

Update 9:21am Tuesday: Nigel Farage will contest Clacton for Reform, and also becomes Reform’s leader. The JL Partners poll that previously had Labour’s lead at 12 points now has Labour leading by 17 points.

The US general election will be held on November 5. National polls conducted since the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump suggest a small movement to Joe Biden. If this is sustained, Biden should be able to overturn his 1.2% deficit to Trump in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of national polls and improve his chance to win the Electoral College.

ANC loses majority at South African election

The 400 South African MPs were elected by proportional representation without a threshold. The African National Congress (ANC) had won a majority of votes and seats at every election since the end of apartheid in 1994, but lost their majority at the May 29 election.

The ANC won 40.2% of the vote (down 17.3% since 2019), the centrist Democratic Alliance 21.8% (up 1.0%), former president Jacob Zuma’s left-wing populist MK 14.6% (new) and the communist EFF 9.5% (down 1.3%). The ANC won 159 seats, the DA 87, the MK 58 and the EFF 39. The ANC will need an alliance to get the 201 seats required for a majority.

Mexican left wins second successive landslide

Mexican presidents are elected for six-year terms by FPTP and cannot run for re-election. In 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-wing MORENA party won a breakthrough victory for the left with 54.7%, with his nearest opponent on just 22.9%. At Sunday’s election, MORENA’s Claudia Sheinbaum crushed conservative Xóchitl Gálvez by 57.8-29.3 with 10.6% for a third party candidate (results at 5:40pm AEST Monday with 53% reporting). Sheinbaum is a former climate scientist and will be Mexico’s first female president.

Update 9:12am Tuesday: With 93% reporting, Sheinbaum wins by 59.2-27.8 with 10.4% for the third candidate. MORENA also held its majorities in the legislature.

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, and his own website is here.

The UK general election will be held on July 4. The Guardian’s aggregate of UK national pols has Labour over 20 points ahead of the Conservatives, with vote shares of 44.7% Labour, 23.3% Conservative, 11.3% for the far-right Reform, 9.5% Liberal Democrats and 6.0% Greens. In the week since the election was called, Labour’s vote has improved about one point.

With the UK’s use of first-past-the-post, current vote shares imply a massive Labour landslide. The Electoral Calculus seat forecast as at May 21 was for Labour to win 479 of the 650 House of Commons seats, to just 92 Conservatives, 44 Lib Dems and 12 from the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Two recent national polls from Opinium and JL Partners are better for the Conservatives with Labour leads at 12-14 points. But most polls have Labour leading by over 20 points.

At the December 2019 general election, the Conservatives won 365 of the 650 seats, to 202 for Labour, 48 SNP and 11 Lib Dems. Perhaps it was a mistake for the Conservatives to oust Boris Johnson as their leader and PM after he led them to this triumph. The Conservatives have governed in the UK for the last 14 years.

At the 2019 election in Scotland, the SNP won 48 of the 59 seats, to six Conservatives, four Lib Dems and just one Labour. Vote shares were 45.0% SNP, 25.1% Conservative, 18.6% Labour and 9.5% Lib Dems. Scottish polls suggest Labour has overtaken the SNP, which would give Labour a large seat gain at the SNP’s expense.

Conservative PM Rishi Sunak’s net favourability was at its highest at -19 soon after he became PM in November 2022. In January 2024, it dropped to -51, and has been at about that level since. Labour leader Keir Starmer’s net favourability has been between -23 and -17 since May 2023.

Other upcoming elections

The Indian election has been held in seven stages, with the final stage this Saturday. Votes will be counted next Tuesday June 4, and I will have a post to follow the counting. The 543 MPs are elected by FPTP. The right-wing alliance (NDA) of PM Narendra Modi, who is running for a third successive term, has a high-single to double-digit lead in polls over the opposition INDIA alliance, and is expected to win a decisive majority.

The European parliament election will be held from June 6-9, with vote counting starting once all countries have finished voting. The 720 seats are elected using proportional representation in each EU country. Far-right parties are expected to make gains. I will have a post on this on June 9.

The US general election will be held on November 5. In the FiveThirtyEight national poll aggregate, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by 41.0-39.8 with 10.1% for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump’s lead has slightly widened from 0.8% four weeks ago. The best chance for a Biden win is to win all of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where he trails by two points or less. If he does this, he probably wins the Electoral College by 270-268.

South African election

The 400 South African MPs are elected by proportional representation without a threshold. The African National Congress (ANC) has won a majority of votes and seats at every election since the end of apartheid in 1994. I hoped to have results of Wednesday’s election, but only 0.6% had been counted at 12pm AEST Thursday, seven hours after polls closed. I will update this section when fuller results are available.

Update 11:50am Friday With 51% counted, the ANC is at 42.6%, down from 57.5% at the 2019 election, and looks set to lose the majority they have held since 1994.

Live Commentary

11am Monday With all 107 councils in, Labour won 1,158 councillors (up 186), the Lib Dems 522 (up 104), the Tories 515 (down 474), independents 228 (up 93) and the Greens 181 (up 74). Councils controlled are Labour 51 (up eight), Lib Dems 12 (up two), Tories six (down ten), independents one (up one) and no overall control 37 (down one). This is the first time the Tories have finished third since 1996.

7:28am Sunday Labour’s Sadiq Khan has easily been re-elected London mayor, defeating Tory Susan Hall by 43.8-32.7 with 5.8% Lib Dems and 5.8% Greens. There was a 3.8% swing to Khan and a 2.6% swing against the Tories. On the London Assembly, Labour won 11 of the 25 seats (steady since 2021), the Tories eight (down one), the Greens three (steady), the Lib Dems two (steady) and Reform one (up one).

In a further blow for Sunak, Labour has defeated incumbent Tory mayor Andy Street in West Midlands, winning by 37.8-37.5 with 11.7% for an independent, 5.8% for Reform and 5.2% for the Greens. Labour’s vote share was down 1.9% on 2021, but the Tories were down 11.2%. Overall, Labour has won 10 of the 11 mayors contested, with the one Tory win coming in Tees Valley.

7:41pm Here’s the BBC’s live blog for today’s mayoral counts.

2:19pm With William Bowe’s permission, I’ve pinned this post to the top of the blog since Friday afternoon. But at 6pm today, William will start live coverage of the Tasmanian upper house elections, and this post will drop back to fifth. If you want to follow the remaining mayoral results, you’ll need to scroll.

11:25am After 102 of 107 councils, Labour has 1,026 councillors (up 173), the Tories 479 (down 448), the Lib Dems 505 (up 101), independents 224 (up 92) and the Greens 159 (up 65). Councils controlled are Labour 48 (up eight), Tories five (down ten), Lib Dems 12 (up two), independents one (up one) and no overall control 36 (down one). The Tories have reduced their proportional losses to a bit under half. George Galloway’s Workers Party and Reform have both won councillors (four and two respectively).

11:16am Labour won the East Midlands mayoralty last night by 40.3-28.8 over the Tories with 11.3% Greens and 10.9% Reform. That leaves seven of 11 mayors yet to declare, including the London mayoralty.

7:18am Saturday The BBC’s Projected National Share, that applies these council results to the whole country, is 34% Labour, 25% Tories, 17% Lib Dems and 24% for all Others. Compared with 2021, when these seats were last contested, Labour is up five, the Tories down 11 and the Lib Dems steady. Compared with 2023, Labour and the Tories are both down one and the Lib Dems down three. This is the Tories’ equal record low in PNS, and they were last at 25% in 2013 and 1995. The Greens account for “as much as half” of the Others’ total. This result will be a little disappointing for Labour, which would have expected a double-digit PNS margin.

11:49pm Labour wins the York and North Yorkshire mayoralty, which includes Sunak’s seat. Labour won by 35.1-27.3 over the Tories with 16.2% Lib Dems and 8.0% Greens.

11:35pm Labour wins the North East mayoralty, defeating a defector by 41.3-28.2 with 11.7% for the Tories and 9.2% for Reform. In the council results, the Tories are continuing to lose over half their existing seats.

9:40pm The Tories have held the Tees Valley mayoralty, winning by 53.6-41.3 over Labour with 5.0% Lib Dem. But after 42 of 107 councils, the Tories are continuing to lose over half the seats they are defending. Labour has 362 councillors (up 62), the Tories 131 (down 149), the Lib Dems 133 (up 24), independents 78 (up 49) and the Greens 28 (up 15). Councils controlled are Labour 22 (up four), Tories three (down three), Lib Dems five (steady) and no overall control 12 (down one).

4:43pm Curtice says the swings so far at the local elections are 10% from Tories to Labour since 2021 and 1% since 2023. If this holds up, Labour will win the BBC’s Projected National Share by a low double-digit margin. The Tories have so far lost over half the councillors they were defending. If this holds up, it will be their worst proportional loss since 1995.

2:58pm It’s now nearly 6am Friday in the UK. This guide to results in The Guardian indicates things will go quiet until later tonight AEST, then there’ll be more declarations. The London mayoralty will be declared Saturday UK time (probably after midnight Sunday AEST).

2:43pm After 33 of 107 councils, Labour has 298 councillors (up 58), the Tories 110 (down 118), the Lib Dems 100 (up 15), independents 61 (up 33) and the Greens 20 (up 12). Councils controlled are Labour 17 (up four), the Tories three (down three), the Lib Dems four (steady) and no overall control nine (down one).

2:36pm The Tories have lost six other seats at by-elections since July 2023, all on huge swings to Labour or the Lib Dems. They did manage to hold former PM Boris Johnson’s seat of Uxbridge in July 2023.

1:52pm Labour GAINS Blackpool South (the parliamentary by-election), crushing the Tories by over 40 points. The Tories barely stayed ahead of Reform for 2nd place.

Blackpool South parliamentary by-election, result:

LAB: 58.9% (+20.6)
CON: 17.5% (-32.1)
REF: 16.9% (+10.7)
LDEM: 2.1% (-1.0)
GRN: 2.0% (+0.3)

Labour GAIN from Conservative.

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 3, 2024

12:59pm After 22 of 107 councils, Labour has 195 coucillors (up 44), the Tories 50 (down 81), the Lib Dems 55 (up six), independents 38 (up 22) and the Greens 13 (up nine). Councils controlled are Labour 13 (up three), the Tories one (down two), the Lib Dems two (steady) and no overall control six (down one).

12:48pm Blackpool South turnout 32.5%, compared with 56.8% at 2019 general election. Labour easily winning according to BBC with Tories and Reform in battle for 2nd. Also Curtice says Greens averaging 11% in wards they’ve contested and Reform 14%. In wards contested by Reform, Tories down 19% on 2021.

12:15pm Labour has GAINED Rushmoor council from the Tories. This is a historic gain as Rushmoor has never had a Labour majority, and the Tories had controlled it for the last 24 years.

11:56am After 17 of 107 councils, Labour have 116 councillors (up 24), the Tories 29 (down 53), the Lib Dems 36 (up six), independents 26 (up 17) and the Greens nine (up six). Councils controlled are Labour ten (up two), Tories one (down one), Lib Dems one (steady) and no overall control five (down one).

11:46am BBC’s live blog quotes UK election analyst John Curtice saying it’s a strong performance in early wards from far-right Reform and the Greens. There’s an 8% swing from Con to Lab since 2021, and a more modest 1% swing since 2023. Also, Labour have GAINED Thurrock council from the Tories.

11:18am The BBC’s live blog says Labour has GAINED Hartlepool council (previously no overall control). The Blackpool South by-election is expected to be declared after 12pm AEST.

11:12am Friday On the BBC’s council scoreboard, after 7 of 107 councils declared, Labour has 56 councillors (up four from the last time these wards were contested in 2021), the Tories 20 (down 18), the Lib Dems 17 (up one), independents 14 (up nine) and the Greens seven (up four).

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, and his own website is here.

Polls close for UK local government elections and the parliamentary Blackpool South by-election at 7am AEST Friday. Owing to COVID, there were no elections in 2020, so the large majority of the seats up were last contested in 2021. At the 2021 local elections, the Conservatives under Boris Johnson had a big win. With national polls now showing a huge Labour lead of around 20 points, the Conservatives are virtually certain to suffer large losses.

Local elections are contested on a four-year cycle, with different wards up every year. Some years are more Conservative-leaning and others Labour-leaning. The BBC’s Projected National Share (PNS) attempts to correct for bias in the particular year. In 2021, the Conservatives won the PNS by 36-29 over Labour with 17% for the Liberal Democrats. In 2023, Labour won by 35-26 with 20% Lib Dems.

The biggest prize at these elections is the London mayoralty. Previously, mayors were elected by preferential voting, but the Conservative government regressed to first-past-the-post. Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan, who is running for a third term, has a double-digit lead over Conservative Susan Hall. These local elections will be the last before the general election, which must be held by January 2025.

There will also be a parliamentary by-election today in Conservative-held Blackpool South.  The Conservatives gained Blackpool South from Labour at the 2019 election, winning by a 49.6-38.3 margin with 6.1% for the Brexit Party.

Results for some councils and the Blackpool South by-election will come in Friday AEST, but we may need to wait until Sunday morning for the results to be complete. I expect the London mayoralty won’t be declared until Saturday AEST. I will be at gym until 11am on Friday morning. Results will be available at the BBC.

There may be an early election in Scotland after the coalition government between the Scottish National Party and Greens broke apart. At the 2021 election, the SNP won 64 of the 129 seats, one short of a majority, but one of their members has since defected to the Alba party. On Monday, Humza Yousaf quit as Scotland first minister, and there will be a leadership contest within the SNP to replace him.

US: Trump narrowly ahead nationally

The US election is on November 5. FiveThirtyEight now has polling averages. Nationally, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by 41.6-40.8 with 10.3% for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. There were six narrow Biden-won states in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump currently leads in all six of these states by one-to-six-point margins. Biden’s best chance to win the Electoral College is to win Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states where he trails by 2.6 points or less. If Biden wins these three states, he likely wins the Electoral College by 270-268.

Recent elections

The South Korean legislative election was held on April 10. Of the 300 seats, 254 were elected by FPTP and 46 by proportional representation. The centre-left Democratic Alliance won 176 of the 300 total seats (down four since 2020), the conservative People Power 108 (up two), and the left-wing Rebuilding Korea, which only contested the PR seats, won 12 seats (new). The Democratic Alliance won the FPTP seats by 162-90 on a popular vote margin of 52.3-45.7.

The most powerful office in South Korea is the president. At the 2022 presidential election, People Power candidate Yoon Suk Yeol defeated the Democrat by 48.6-47.8. While the legislative election will be seen as a repudiation of Yoon, his term does not end until 2027.

At the April 6 Slovak presidential runoff election, Peter Pellegrini, an ally of the more pro-Russia PM, won by a 53.1-46.9 margin over Ivan Korčok. Korčok had finished first at the March 23 first round, leading by 42.5-37.0.

Croatia uses PR in multi-member electorates to elect 143 of its 151 MPs, with the remaining eight reserved for minorities. At the April 17 election, the conservative HDZ won 61 seats (down six since 2020), the centre-left Rivers of Justice 42 (up two), two other right-wing alliances a combined 25 seats (up one) and the green-left 10 (up five).

Live Commentary

1:53pm Finally a result, with Galloway winning easily and Tully second. The Tories were down 22 points to 12% and Labour crashed 48 points to just 8%! The Labour candidate was disendorsed.

Rochdale parliamentary by-election, result:

WPB: 39.7% (+39.7)
IND: 21.3% (+21.3)
CON: 12.0% (-22.0)
LAB: 7.7% (-48.4)
LDEM: 7.0% (-0.6)
REF: 6.3% (+6.3)

Workers Party of Britain (George Galloway) GAIN from Labour.

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 1, 2024

1:17pm Re last update, it’s been a very slow 20 minutes!

12:47pm The BBC reported at 12:40pm that the result will be earlier than expected, in another 10 to 20 minutes.

11:53am Galloway’s campaign are confident they’ve won, and an independent (David Tully) is doing very well, and could come second.

11:37am The BBC reported at 10:37am AEDT that Galloway’s people think he’s won.

11:32am BBC’s live blog says the Rochdale result is expected about 2pm AEDT. Counting in the UK doesn’t happen by booth as in Australia. Instead all votes cast in a seat are taken to one place for the count.

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, and his own website is here.

Polls close at 9am AEDT today for a by-election in the UK Labour-held seat of Rochdale that was caused by the death of the previous MP, Tony Lloyd. Labour defeated the Conservatives by 51.6-31.2 in Rochdale in 2019, with 8.2% Brexit Party and 7.0% Lib Dem. With Labour far ahead in national polls, a by-election in a safe Labour-held seat would normally be uninteresting.

But Labour’s candidate, Ashar Ali, was disendorsed by Labour on February 12, owing to revelations of comments he made implying that Israel knew of the October 7 Hamas attacks, but deliberately did nothing to stop them. But as nominations had already closed, Ali is still listed as the Labour candidate on the ballot paper. If he wins, he will sit as an independent.

Muslims make up 30% of Rochdale’s population and George Galloway, who has attacked Labour from the left for a long time, is running as the Workers Party candidate, on a campaign focused on support for Palestine. Galloway is probably the biggest threat to Ali.

Labour has been criticized from the left for its position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and there was uproar in parliament last week when the Speaker allowed a Labour amendment instead of one proposed by the Scottish National Party. If the SNP amendment had been voted on, many Labour MPs would have rebelled against their party’s opposition.

The Labour MP for Rochdale before Lloyd was Simon Danczuk, but he was expelled from the party in 2015 after revelations of explicit messages with a 17-year-old girl. Danczuk ran as an independent in 2017 but finished fifth with just 1.8%. At this by-election, he is running as the far-right Reform’s candidate.

Former Conservative MP Scott Benton was suspended from parliament for 35 days on Tuesday. As the suspension is greater than ten days, it triggers a recall petition in Benton’s seat of Blackpool South. The petition will be open for six weeks, and if at least 10% of voters in Blackpool South sign, there will be a by-election. The Conservatives gained Blackpool South from Labour at the 2019 election, winning by a 49.6-38.3 margin with 6.1% for the Brexit Party.

Trump and Biden dominate in Michigan

At Tuesday’s US Republican Michigan primary, Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley by 68.1-26.6. Only 16 of Michigan’s 55 delegates were allocated, with a further 39 to be assigned in Saturday’s state convention. Idaho, Washington DC and North Dakota also hold Republican contests before Super Tuesday next week (Wednesday AEDT). Trump leads Haley by 122 delegates to 24, with 1,215 needed to win the nomination.

Joe Biden won the Democratic Michigan primary with 81.1%. Owing to opposition to Biden’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, some on the left had urged voters to vote “uncommitted”, but uncommitted only won 13.2%.

Live Commentary

9:25am Sunday Final results: Lai defeated Hou by 40.1-33.5, a 6.6% margin, with 26.5% for Ko. However, the DPP lost its majority in the 113-member legislature, with the KMT winning 52 seats (up 14 since 2020), the DPP 51 (down ten), the TPP eight (up three) and others two (down seven). The DPP will need support from either the KMT or TPP to reach the 57 votes needed for a majority.

11:07pm With 95% reporting, Lai leads Hou by 40.3-33.4 with 26.3% for Ko. Although his lead has slipped with counting of final votes, Lai has still clearly won. A reminder that this election is by First Past the Post, so there’s no runoff.

10:24pm With 76% reporting, Lai leads Hou by 41.1-33.2 with 25.7% for Ko.

9:11pm With 16% reporting, Lai leads Hou by 43.1-33.6 with 23.4% for Ko. Looking very likely Lai will win a record third consecutive term for the DPP.

8:33pm With 3% reporting, Lai leads Hou by 43.2-35.6 with 21.2% for Ko.

7:30pm Bloomberg says the first results from Taiwan should be out after 8pm AEDT.

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, and his own website is here.

Polls close at 7pm AEDT today for Taiwan’s presidential election, in which first past the post is used. There are three candidates: William Lai of the centre-left and pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hou You-ih of the more pro-China and conservative Kuomintang (KMT) and Ko Wen-je of the populist Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

The DPP holds the presidency, with incumbent Tsai Ing-wen elected for two terms since 2016, but she can’t run again owing to term limits. There had been speculation that the KMT and TPP would form a joint ticket before nominations closed on November 24, but this fell apart.

Publication of polls has not been permitted since January 3. The final polls released before this date showed Lai leading Hou by two to five points, with one poll giving Lai an 11-point lead. Ko’s support was in the low 20’s. If Lai wins, it would be the first time the same party has won the presidency for three consecutive terms. This election is likely to be the first since 2000 when the winner did not receive a vote majority.

Trump set for big win in Iowa caucus

The first US presidential nominating contest will be Monday’s Iowa Republican caucus (Tuesday AEDT). The FiveThirtyEight aggregate of Iowa polls shows Donald Trump way ahead with 51.3%, followed by Nikki Haley at 17.3% and Ron DeSantis at 16.1%. I will have a separate post on Iowa on Tuesday.

The New Hampshire primary follows Iowa on January 23. Trump is leading in NH with 41.4%, followed by Haley at 30.0% and DeSantis at 6.1%. There has been a surge for Haley since December. She should be helped by the withdrawal of anti-Trump candidate Chris Christie on Wednesday; Christie had 11.6% in NH polls.

In national Republican polls, Trump is far ahead with 60.4%, followed by DeSantis at 12.1% and Haley at 11.7%. On Super Tuesday March 5, many states will vote, and Trump and Joe Biden will probably be close to clinching their parties’ nominations after this date. No high-profile Democrat has challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination.

I covered the US presidential election for The Conversation on December 13. I said that while Trump was leading Biden, there were two main chances of a Biden recovery: an improvement in economic sentiment and a Trump conviction. But Biden will be almost 82 by the November election, while Trump will be 78.

Upcoming US and UK by-elections

Republican George Santos was expelled from the federal House on December 1 by a 311-114 vote (a two-thirds majority was required). Santos was facing 23 indictments when expelled. A by-election will be held on February 13 in Santos’ former seat (New York’s third). In 2022, Santos gained this seat from the Democrats by a 53.8-46.2 margin. According to Daily Kos elections, Biden won this seat in 2020 by an 8.2% margin. A late November poll gave the Democrat a three-point lead.

In most midterm elections, the non-presidential party has won easily. Democrats did well in 2022 to keep Republicans to a 222-213 federal House majority, a Republican gain of nine seats on 2020. But Democrats lost four seats in New York.

Republicans currently hold a 220-213 House majority after former Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy resigned on December 31. McCarthy’s seat is safe Republican, so this by-election is unlikely to be competitive. A Democratic win in New York’s third would reduce the Republican majority to 220-214 until McCarthy’s seat is filled.

By-elections will occur on February 15 in the UK Conservative-held seat of Wellingborough and Kingswood. In Wellingborough MP Peter Bone was recalled following a six-week parliamentary suspension, while in Kingswood MP Chris Skidmore resigned in protest over more oil and gas licenses. In 2019 Bone won Wellingborough by 62.2-26.5 over Labour with 7.9% for the Liberal Democrats, while Skidmore won Kingswood by 56.2-33.4 over Labour with 6.9% Lib Dem. The Conservatives have lost safer seats at by-elections this term.