Tag: Elections
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Joint opposition lists help un-skew the Hungarian electoral system, but they’ll still need a 3% lead to win
Five months from the 2022 Parliamentary elections, Hungary’s opposition is just about holding together the coalition needed to mount a credible campaign against Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government. Last month, they chose their candidate for Prime Minister: Péter Márki-Zay, mayor of Hódmezővásárhely. Márki-Zay, a conservative politician with no national experience and practically no party of his…
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Shopping around: 70% expect to vote for more than one party in future
Before 2019, it was pretty common on social media to see the idea that in certain places – particularly in the north of England – Labour MPs could rely on voters to reelect them no matter what they or the party did. This was never really true (and it was often laced with classism) but…
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The Greens’ path to breakthrough runs through the Labour Party
Since the 2019 election, the Greens have been quietly creeping up in polls. Now sat at 5-7% in averages, the party is at its highest point since summer 2019, which was itself the Green’s best polling since before 2015. 5-7% might not seem like a lot, but in a FPTP election with dozens of seats…
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Five Lessons from the Metro Mayor Elections
Back in April, I tried to consider what our expectations of the 8 combined authority (metro) mayoral elections should be. As I said at the time, these weren’t meant to be predictions, but an attempt to think about what a “baseline” result would look like, based solely on national polls and general election results. On…
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Labour stands to gain in the metro mayor elections
As May 21st’s ‘Super Thursday’ elections come into view, all eyes are on whether Nicola Sturgeon will secure her majority for independence, and whether Labour will cling on in Hartlepool. But Super Tuesday also features 8 of England’s biggest electoral tests, in the form of combined authority mayoral elections. These elections will give individual politicians…
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Which states should have the first four primaries? The case for picking the weirdest ones
This week, Democratic National Convention chair Tom Perez declared his support for changing the order of presidential primaries and caucuses so that Iowa and New Hampshire are toppled from their respective ‘first in the nation’ positions. Perez argues that more diverse states should be prioritised in selecting the Democrats’ future presidential candidates, presumably driven partly…
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Uniform swing outperformed state polls for the first time in US polling history in 2020
The 2020 election had a huge focus on state polls – far more so than in 2016, when more national polls were commissioned and discussed. This makes sense given the distorting effect of the electoral college. The renewed focus was supposed to ensure another upset would not happen again, with higher quality polls in swing…
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Thesis: Moving the Goalposts: Orbán’s Fidesz, Strategies of Party Competition and Electoral Authoritarianism
My undergraduate thesis: Moving the Goalposts: Orbán’s Fidesz, Strategies of Party Competition and Electoral Authoritarianism
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Proportional Representation: a Catalyst for Sustainable Policies?
My contribution to the Young Fabians Environment Network pamphlet ‘Ways to Save the World’ the full pamphlet can be found here. Until recently, interest in electoral reform was reserved for political anoraks. Around election time, some party activists grumbled about the unfairness of the system, but there were few serious attempts to change it. In…
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Peterloo led eventually to electoral democracy – but there’s one big bit of unfinished business
New evidence shows that it’s the Right that tend to benefit from the UK’s unequal electoral system. The Left is gradually embracing Proportional Representation, but it needs to move faster. This was originally posted as an article for OpenDemocracy: Peterloo led eventually to electoral democracy – but there’s one big bit of unfinished business Today marks…
Owen Winter 