Why did Kamala Harris lose the US election so badly? Here’s one answer: she was an incumbent. Across the democratic word, holding office has become a reliable predictor of a bad night.
Take this year alone: the Democrats have lost the popular vote for the first time since 2004, the Conservative Party has suffered its worst ever result, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party has endured its second-worst ever result, and, in South Africa, the African National Congress has lost its 30-year majority. Incumbent parties also saw heavy losses in France, Austria and Belgium.
This trend, as the political scientist Rob Ford notes, can be traced back to the inflationary spike that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are some exceptions: in Greece and Spain centre-right and centre-left governments, respectively, were re-elected. But such results are notable for their rarity: across the Anglosphere, incumbents have fallen in Australia and New Zealand and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are heading for defeat in Canada.
It’s this pattern that has left Labour MPs asking whether they could be a one-term government. This was the case even the day after the general election (I called it a “precarious triumph” back then). Though Labour won a landslide, 51 of its seats were held by a majority of less than 5 per cent. The same electoral volatility that allowed the party to recover in a single term could see it ousted next time.
Events since 4 July have proved more ominous still. Keir Starmer has suffered the largest drop in approval of any new prime minister (from +11 to -30) and Labour’s already slight vote share (33.7 per cent) has fallen in opinion polls. Budget forecasts suggest that living-standards growth in this parliament will be the second worst in recent history (at just 0.5 per cent). And this is before we factor in a potential global trade war.
What, if anything, gives cabinet ministers hope? Kemi Badenoch’s start as Conservative Party leader, for one thing. To date, she has opposed the introduction of VAT on private school fees (one of Labour’s most popular policies) and, at her first PMQs, tied herself to Donald Trump – 57 per cent of British voters, including 51 per cent of Tory supporters, are “unhappy” about his victory.
But it’s far too early to dismiss Badenoch’s chances and, in any case, the Conservatives have form for replacing unpopular leaders (Boris Johnson will be eyeing a comeback at this point).
Starmer likes to talk about a “decade of national renewal” but the challenge will be demonstrating enough progress after five years. The last time that a prime minister won convincing re-election was Tony Blair in 2005. David Cameron’s victory in 2015 depended on the collapse of the Liberal Democrats and a Brexit referendum promise that soon destroyed him.
Labour is seeking to learn from its past successes – it has revived the investment-vs-cuts dividing line that Blair and Gordon Brown deployed against the Conservatives. The question, in a politically and economically transformed world, is whether that will be enough.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
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