Lowest winning share of the vote in FPTP seats

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Weird question here: FPTP throws up some odd results sometimes, often where there is a huge pile-up of candidates allowing a winner to scrape into power on a ridiculously small voteshare. I know the record in UK general elections, for example, was the SDLP with 24.5 percent in Belfast South (2015). Any scores beat that in any system that involves SMDs? (E.g. germany, Italy post-94, Canada)

[Dr. MB]

In U.S. competitive party primaries, the winner sometimes wins with <30%.

[jaichind]

The smallest I have seen was in Chandankiyari of 2005 Jharkhand assembly election in India.  There the JMM won with 16.3% of the vote with 32 total candidates.  2nd place was AJSU with 12.6% and 3rd place was JVC with 11.5%.  A total of 9 candidates got above 4% of the vote. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Only last year Eva Högl (SPD) was re-elected at Berlin Mitte with 23.5% of the vote. A couple of candidates were elected with slightly lower shares than that in the Berlin City election the previous year. Candidates are often elected on very low poll shares in India if alliances aren't that tight, so that's somewhere to check - state elections are probably more fruitful than Union ones. The best place for this sort of thing used to be Papua New Guinea (it was common to have candidates elected with less than 10%!!!!), but alas they replaced FPTP with IRV a decade ago.

[MaxQue]

Rouyn-Noranda in the Quebec Legislative Assembly in 1944.

David Côté (CCF): 21.0%
Bloc populaire (a populist anti-conscription party, anti-imperialist): 18.5%
Liberal: 17.5%
National Union: 16.5%
Social Credit: 14.1%
Independant (liberal): 11.6%

[Antonio the Sixth]

I've read of candidates in Ukraine winning their seats with 9% of their vote, but I don't have the reference on hand.

[adma]

Toronto's had sub-20% winners in the last two municipal elections: James Pasternak in Ward 10 in 2010 (19.16%) and Christin Carmichael Greb in Ward 16 in 2014 (17.38%) (NB: Pasternak was reelected with 57.78% in 2014)

[DC Al Fine]

Lowest federal result I can find is a Tory winning 22% of the vote in Verdun in 1935. They managed to win thanks to the CCF and Labour splitting the left wing vote almost evenly. More recently the Bloc won Gatineau on 29 % of the vote in 2008.

[adma]

Lowest federal result I can find is a Tory winning 22% of the vote in Verdun in 1935. They managed to win thanks to the CCF and Labour splitting the left wing vote almost evenly. More recently the Bloc won Gatineau on 29 % of the vote in 2008.

Brad Trost (C) won with 26.7% in Saskatoon-Humboldt in 2004.  (4-way split with 4 candidates getting over 20%, including Con-turned-indy incumbent Jim Pankiw.)


In 2015, the following sub-30% victors, all in Quebec thanks to Lib/NDP/Con/Bloc splitting it 4 ways:

Bernard Genereux (C), Montmagny et al, 28.99%
Karine Trudel (N), Jonquiere, 29.19%
Jean-Yves Duclos (L), Quebec, 28.90%
Brigitte Sansoucy (N), St-Hyacinthe-Bagot, 28.65%
Xavier Barsalou-Duval (B), Pierre-Boucher et al, 28.64%

[the506]

I compiled something like this for Canada a while back:

https://twitter.com/electionatlasCA/status/938512676531077120

[Simfan34]

I'm not sure this is what you're looking for, but the star-studded 1977 Democratic Primary for NYC Mayor deserves an honourable mention, if nothing else; no candidate received more than 20%, or less than 10% of the vote:

Ed Koch: 19.82%
Mario Cuomo: 18.60%
Abe Beame (inc): 17.99%
Bella Abzug: 16.58%
Percy Sutton: 14.48%
Herman Badillo: 11.03%

[adma]

I'm not sure this is what you're looking for, but the star-studded 1977 Democratic Primary for NYC Mayor deserves an honourable mention, if nothing else; no candidate received more than 20%, or less than 10% of the vote:

Ed Koch: 19.82%
Mario Cuomo: 18.60%
Abe Beame (inc): 17.99%
Bella Abzug: 16.58%
Percy Sutton: 14.48%
Herman Badillo: 11.03%

Now, *that* was a cast of all-stars.  (And it's worth noting that frontrunner Koch won none of the boroughs--it was his strong second to Abzug in Manhattan that nailed it.)

[Tintrlvr]

I'm not sure this is what you're looking for, but the star-studded 1977 Democratic Primary for NYC Mayor deserves an honourable mention, if nothing else; no candidate received more than 20%, or less than 10% of the vote:

Ed Koch: 19.82%
Mario Cuomo: 18.60%
Abe Beame (inc): 17.99%
Bella Abzug: 16.58%
Percy Sutton: 14.48%
Herman Badillo: 11.03%

Sadly, for the sake of this thread, this wasn't an FPTP election. There was a run-off.

[Simfan34]

I'm not sure this is what you're looking for, but the star-studded 1977 Democratic Primary for NYC Mayor deserves an honourable mention, if nothing else; no candidate received more than 20%, or less than 10% of the vote:

Ed Koch: 19.82%
Mario Cuomo: 18.60%
Abe Beame (inc): 17.99%
Bella Abzug: 16.58%
Percy Sutton: 14.48%
Herman Badillo: 11.03%

Sadly, for the sake of this thread, this wasn't an FPTP election. There was a run-off.

Shh!