List of landslide victories

In politics, a landslide victory (or just landslide) is the victory of a candidate or political party by an overwhelming margin in an election.[1] Just what margin is needed for a victory to be "in [or by] a landslide" has not been precisely defined, and has varied from time to time.

Australia

After the 2007 federal election some commentators[who?] referred to the Labor Party's win under Kevin Rudd as a ruddslide. By historical standards though, the victory was not unusually large. Some notable election results in Australia have been:

  • 1917 - Nationalist Party won 53 of the 75 seats in the House of Representatives
  • 1925 - Nationalist-Country Coalition won 51 of the 75 seats in the House of Representatives
  • 1929 - Australian Labor Party won 46 of the 75 seats in the House of Representatives
  • The 1931 election stands as the greatest loss of seats for a government - 32 seats in a 74-seat parliament
  • 1943 - Australian Labor Party won 49 of the 74 seats and a 58.2% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1946 - Australian Labor Party won 43 of the 74 seats and a 54.1% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1949 - Liberal-Country Coalition won 74 of the 121 seats and a 51.0% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1958 - Liberal-Country Coalition won 77 of the 121 seats and a 54.1% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1966 - Liberal-Country Coalition won 82 of the 124 seats and a 56.9% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1975 - Liberal-National Coalition won 91 of the 127 seats and a 55.7% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1983 - Australian Labor Party won 75 of the 125 seats and a 53.2% TPP in the House of Representatives
  • 1996 - Liberal-National Coalition won 94 of the 148 seats and a 53.6% TPP in the House of Representatives

Australian elections are characterised by few changes in government — since 1949 there have been only five elections where a new party has won government. When a new party is elected, however, it is often by a landslide.

Some notable state election landslides include:

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Brazil

Considering that Brazil has a two-round system there has never been a landslide victory in presidential elections since the redemocratization in the late 1980s. The closest to a landslide victory in presidential elections happened when Fernando Henrique Cardoso was both elected and re-elected in the first round with 53% of the valid votes against about 30% of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Considering the second round, Lula had a landslide victory both in 2002 and 2006, achieving more than 60% of the valid votes against 39% of his contestants.

Prior to the Estado Novo regime, there were some landslide victories, but it should be noted that electoral corruption was widespread and voting was restricted to literate men. Those landslide vistories were:

All three national referendums were marked with landslide victories. In 1963, Presidentialism was restored with 80% of the votes. Thirty years later, the Republican regime was preferred in a referendum by 86% of voters and Presidentialism by 69%. In all states, the Republican option had over 80% of the votes. In 2005, almost 64% voted against the prohibition of firearms and ammunition commercialization.

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British Virgin Islands

  • In the 2007 general election the opposition Virgin Islands Party won 10 out of the 13 available electoral seats (76.9%). One of the three remaining seats was won by an independent endorsed by, and who subsequently joined, the party, leaving the opposition with just two out of 13 seats (15.4%).
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Belgium

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Burma/Myanmar

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Canada

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Colombia

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France

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Germany

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Hong Kong

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Hungary

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Indonesia

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Ireland

These were the only times a party has won a majority of the vote in an Irish General Election.

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Jamaica

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Japan

The once-dominant Liberal Democratic Party has held large parliamentary majorities in the 1960s until the 1970s when it had to govern with coalitions to command workable majorities.

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Kyrgyzstan

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New Zealand

New Zealand formerly used solely first-past-the-post voting until 1993, when it switched to the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system in 1996 to elect members of the Parliament of New Zealand.

Therefore, landslides have not happened since then as no single party has won a majority of seats under proportional representation.

Instances of landslides under first-past-the-post voting:

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Philippines

In the Philippines, the positions of president and vice president are directly elected separately, without runoff election.

From 1935 to 1946, the Philippines was under de facto one-party rule by the Nacionalista Party; as such all presidential elections were landslides; Manuel L. Quezon won with 68% of the vote in 1935 and an even bigger margin of 82% on 1941. Sergio Osmeña won even larger margins in the vice presidential elections: 80% in 1935 and 85% in 1942.

From 1946 to 1972, the Philippines was under a two-party system, but landslides were rarer except for these instances:

In 1972, martial law was declared and political opposition was suppressed. It was lifted in 1981, but other major parties boycotted that year's election.

Since 1987, the country is under a multi-party system; with the winner always winning via a plurality leading to smaller margins of victory. However, two landslides are recognized:

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Poland

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Portugal

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Romania

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Russia

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Scotland

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Singapore

The People's Action Party has continuously enjoyed winning large parliamentary majorities since its first victory in 1959, when Singapore was under British colonial rule.

From the 1968 to 1980 general elections, the PAP won a monopoly of seats in the Singapore parliament and a vote share above 70%, as a result of an opposition boycott in 1968 and weak opposition forces seeing little success. This trend ended in 1984, when the PAP won less than 65% of the vote and the opposition parties returned with a presence in the legislature, but with the PAP continuing to hold a large parliamentary majority (above 90% of seats in the parliament). This was wildly exaggerated as a result of the Group Representation Constituency bloc voting scheme implemented in 1988 with the PAP winning 60% and above vote shares.

However, one instance of a landslide (in terms of vote share) took place in:

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South Korea

  • In the 2007 Presidential election, Lee Myung-bak beat his nearest rival Chung Dong-young by 22.6 percentage points, garnering 48.7% of the vote against Chung's 26.1% of the vote, while independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang came in third with 15.1% of the vote. Since the beginning of direct Presidential elections in South Korea, this election was won by the widest margin in South Korea history. However, the turnout was the lowest ever for a South Korean presidential election.
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Spain

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Taiwan

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Thailand

Both were under parallel voting system.

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United Kingdom

House of Commons of the United Kingdom

In general, any British general election which results in a majority of over 100 seats tends to be described as a landslide. Landslide victories since the Reform Act 1884 (the first time a majority of adult males could vote) are:

Labour's general election victory in 2001 with an overall majority of 167 was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media. Though the Government did score a very high majority, turnout and public interest in the election was not excited and, unlike most of the landslide results listed above, there was little change from the previous election and no change of governing party.

Landslides are relatively common in British electoral history, and this is partly as a result of the first-past-the-post electoral system. Relatively small differences in numbers of popular votes cast can amplify the eventual result. For instance, Labour achieved a 66-seat majority in the 2005 election despite securing only 35% of the vote, only 3 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives. Conversely, parties can poll very highly and achieve disproportionately low numbers of MPs.

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United States

Presidential

Presidential elections in the United States are indirect; they are not determined by the "popular vote", but by the Electoral College. Each state is allocated as many "electors" as it has Senators and Representatives in the United States Congress, and, at present, all states but Nebraska and Maine hold a "winner take all" vote, in which the winner of the popular vote in a state wins all electoral votes the state is eligible to cast (Nebraska and Maine give two electoral votes to the winner of the state and one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district within the state.). This allows for candidates to win 1 vote more than the runner-up but still get 100% of the electoral votes.

For this reason, many presidential victories appear to be huge landslide victories when examining the electoral vote, but much less so when examining the popular vote; for example, in the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan won 90.9% of the electoral vote but 50.7% of the popular vote to Jimmy Carter's 41.0%.

  • 1789 and 1792 - the highest percentage of Electoral College Votes (100% - George Washington was the only president to win a unanimous Electoral College victory. Washington received the maximum possible electoral votes in both the 1789 and 1792 election.)[7]
  • 1808 - the highest popular vote percentage for the winner (James Madison 64.7%).
  • 1820 - James Monroe had all of the electoral votes except for one which was cast in by William Plumer of New Hampshire to John Quincy Adams, who specifically voted such to leave George Washington the only unanimously-elected President.
  • 1920 - the greatest percentage point margin in the popular vote (Harding 60.3% to Cox 34.1%).
  • 1936 - the greatest electoral votes difference between winner and opponent (Roosevelt 523 to Landon 8).
  • 1984 - the highest number of electoral votes (Reagan 525).

Popular vote margin

Electoral votes

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Notes

  1. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
  2. ^ Military-backed party wins Burma election in landslide: 10 November 2010.
  3. ^ Landslide win for Santos in Colombian election: 22 June 2010.
  4. ^ "Putin party secures huge victory". BBC News. 2007-12-03. Retrieved 2013-01-09. 
  5. ^ Luke Harding and Tom Parfitt in Moscow (2007-11-30). "Fraud, intimidation and bribery as Putin prepares for victory". Guardian. Retrieved 2013-01-09. 
  6. ^ "Official balloting outcome". The Nation (Thailand) (Bangkok). 5 July 2011. 
  7. ^ Both elections were in the pre-12th Amendment electoral college, and thus the maximum available votes one could receive was 50% of available votes. Each elector had to select 2 different candidates. Thus while Washington did not get all the electoral votes, he received the maximum possible. In plain language, every elector voted for Washington, but was required by the constitution to vote for a separate 2nd candidate. The Vice-President office was not a separate election but the runner-up of the presidential election. This method of presidential election was changed with the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1804.
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Last modified on 1 May 2013, at 21:16