Background
On another busy week for by-elections, we had four on the go last Thursday. All of these came about following Labour councillors who had become MPs resigning. East Ayrshire had two such votes on the go, with Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse following Lillian Jones being elected as MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun.
Although Killie has been a hotspot for the SNP for a good while now, their support in this ward had actually ticked downwards over the STV period despite their national share trending upwards. That had meant a notional Labour victory for a single seat in 2022, and I reckoned that meant Labour were pretty firm favourites here.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
Labour: Jayne Sangster
Change vs 2022 (notional): Labour Gain from SNP
Change vs vacating: Labour Hold
Turnout: 23.4% (-21.2)
Electorate: 13260
Valid: 3081 (99.1%)
Spoiled: 28 (0.9%)
Quota: 1541
3 Continuing Councillors:
Conservative: James Adams
SNP: Iain LintonSNP: Douglas Reid
Candidates
Conservative: Allan MacDonald
Lib Dem: Lee Manley
Independent: Stephen McNamaraSNP: Marie RobertsonLabour: Jayne Sangster
First Preferences
Note: Independent Frank McNiff won 6.3%, the Greens 3.9% and Alba 1.2% here in 2022.
First Preference History
Sure enough, Labour did so well here that they took a first preference vote lead for the very first time and hit their best ever vote share. The SNP correspondingly slipped to their worst share yet. Compared to other non-core areas the Conservatives had a relatively modest loss in vote share, but that’s without an Independent whose voters transferred Conservative to a decent degree in 2022 and, more importantly, without a Reform UK candidate. At their first outing in the ward (and absent, for some odd reason, the Greens) the Lib Dems managed a half-decent share by their Ayrshire standards, winning roughly twice as many votes as went for the Independent option.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
The transfers available here were obviously almost entirely of a Pro-Union persuasion, which meant the SNP had no chance whatsoever of overtaking Labour, who easily coasted to legal victory. The swings here are much less significant than first preferences though, at less than half the size. A lot of recent by-elections have seen Labour do not quite as well as you might have expected based on their result in July, and this is another such example. Their rocky first few months in Number 10 are clearly continuing to depress their vote.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Note: This section has been updated after the initial publication, as East Ayrshire Council kindly provided a reworked set of box mergers.
Although Labour didn’t have a huge lead in terms of votes here, they did manage to leverage that into a lead in every polling district, if only just in a couple of cases. Their strongest results came in the merger of districts to the west of Killie town centre plus a chunk to the east around Gilmour Street. The SNP were strongest around the north and west, including Grange, and out to Gatehead, which was also the Independent hotspot. Relatively affluent Gargieston (that may not be the area name but it’s the local school name) in the south west proved the best for the Conservatives, and for the Lib Dems it was Crosshouse.
Second Preferences
Looking at direct second preferences, Labour voters split almost evenly three was between the Lib Dems, SNP and Conservatives, with just 3 votes between the top two next preferences. Both the SNP and Lib Dem voter bases substantially favoured Labour, though the SNP had the largest pile of non-transfers, perhaps reflecting the lack of fellow Pro-Independence options to transfer to. Despite their general lack of strength in the area the Lib Dems actually proved quite popular overall, attracting the largest number of both Conservative and Independent transfers as well.
There’s not long left of 2024, but still plenty of by-elections. We have another four vote week coming up, with three of them in Glasgow: in the North East, Maryhill, and my own Drumchapel and Anniesland ward. The always busy Highland council also has one in Fort William and Ardnamurchan.
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)
