By-Election Preview: Doon Valley (East Ayrshire) 14th of November 2024

Ward Profile

Cause of By-Election

It’s another busy week for by-elections in Scotland. We’ve got four in total, all of which have arisen because Labour councillors were elected as MPs in July’s UK General Election. We’ve not exactly been short of double (or more) bills lately, but this time around in East Ayrshire is slightly different. It’s a classic case of “you wait ages for one bus, and two come along”, because we haven’t had a by-election here since I launched Ballot Box Scotland, and now we have two at once!

The first one is for the Doon Valley ward, where Labour councillor Elaine Stewart has resigned after being elected MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock. Stewart hard only served the Doon Valley since 2022, but had made unsuccessful runs in 2017 and 2007, having previously represented the Dalmellington ward under the old FPTP boundaries following the 2003 election.

Ward Details

Doon Valley is one of 9 wards in East Ayrshire, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. This covers the rather geographically awkward looking spike at the bottom of East Ayrshire which stretches from Dalrymple through Patna out to Dalmellington and neighbouring Bellbank. It also has a somewhat awkward northern lobe which primarily covers Drongan. This is the same boundary as the ward was created with in 2007, so it all compares easily.

For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley constituency which has been held by the SNP since they gained it from Labour in 2011. At the UK Parliament it’s within the Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock constituency that Stewart now represents, having gone from Labour to SNP in 2015, to Conservative in 2017, and back to the SNP in 2019.

Electoral History

For the most part, this ward has elected the same pattern of councillors, though not the same individuals: one apiece for Labour, the SNP and an Independent. In 2007, that Independent was Jim Sutherland, but he sadly passed away in 2009, triggering a by-election that Labour won. Both Labour councillors were re-elected in 2012, making this the one exception to the trend, alongside a new SNP councillor because their incumbent Drew Filson had left the party for reasons lost to the mists of time.

Filson only had to sit one term out however, as come 2017 he became an Independent councillor for the ward; amongst the candidates he beat was Stewart, with the other two being their party’s incumbents. Finally in 2022, Filson was the only returning councillor, as Stewart made it back onto the council after 15 years absence and the SNP had a new candidate.

The initial 2007 election is especially interesting when you look at the votes, because with a solid 49% Labour should have won two seats. However, they completely and utterly bungled it by standing three candidates; I genuinely don’t know what possessed them to do so, given that to guarantee they’d win all three seats, they’d have needed just over 75% of the vote. At the final stage, Sutherland placed just 14 votes ahead of Stewart, who ironically enough had been the most popular Labour candidate on first preferences alone.

The by-election in 2009 saw a spike for the SNP and Labour win a slender majority of the overall vote, but it’s been largely downhill for both since then. You can see Labour managed to win two seats despite fewer votes in 2012, because they had learned their lesson and only stood two candidates that time. In 2017, although Filson placed below the Conservatives, transfers favoured him enough that he won the seat with a 2.3% advantage at the decisive stage, before going on to top the poll in 2022.

Councillors and Key Stats

3 Councillors, in order elected:
Independent: Drew Filson
🔴Labour: Elaine Stewart
🟡SNP: Jennifer Hogg
Change vs 2017: No change
Turnout: 43.9%
Electorate: 8932
Valid: 3866 (98.5%)
Spoiled: 59 (1.5%)
Quota: 967

Candidates

Independent: John Bell
Independent: Drew Filson
🔵Conservative: Samantha Hainey
Independent: Murray Hendrie
🟡SNP: Jennifer Hogg
🔴Labour: Elaine Stewart

First Preferences
Votes Excluding Independent (Double-Distributed)

Note: Given Filson’s significant popularity, it seemed useful to give a clearer indication of how the votes look if he is eliminated and his second preferences re-distributed. In this case I’ve done what I’ve dubbed a “double-distribution”, where I assume that most of the first preference only voters would actually have backed someone else if he hadn’t been on the ballot at all. I simply further re-distribute the non-transfers in the same proportion to her actual transfers. It’s notable how much the other Independents get. I think this is quite a good example that a lot of voters do actually kind of treat Independents as if they were a party: transferring to other Independents ahead of other parties.

Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Party Preferred

By-Election

Candidates

A slightly more colourful ballot than has usually been the case in this ward, with all of the Holyrood parties present plus two Independents. There’s a McNamara standing in each of these by-elections, both former Libertarians. I’m a bit surprised that with the Greens only contesting one of the two East Ayrshire by-elections, this is the one they’ve stood in, especially given they had candidates for the UK election – indeed, their candidate here stood for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock in July. Otherwise the only other returning candidate from recent elections is the Lib Dem, who stood in Kilmarnock East and Hurlford in 2022.

🔵Conservative: Tracey Clark
🟠Lib Dem: Trevor Grant
Independent: Jim Ireland
🔴Labour: Jim Kyle
Independent: Stef McNamara
🟡SNP: Lorraine Pollock
🟢Green: Korin Vallance

Analysis

Given Labour’s enormous lead here in 2022 in two-party preferred terms, I cannot imagine a scenario in which they don’t come out on top here. It really is that simple, analysis concluded, cheerio!

Prediction

Labour Win.

2022 Results (Detailed Data)

Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
Doon Valley: Two-Candidate Preferred

If you find this or other Ballot Box Scotland output useful and/or interesting, and you can afford to do so, please consider donating to support my work. I love doing this, but it’s a one-man project and takes a lot of time and effort. All donations, no matter how small, are greatly appreciated and extremely helpful.
(About Donations)