She evidently did well at exploiting his dearth of popularity, though.
Speaking as a resident of E&W and a spouse of a campaign worker, I'd say it was a combination of both. Monica really connected with the wine mums in the Molsey/Oxshott/Claygate area. She was extremely impressive in the hustings debates (especially compared with the Labour candidate, who was clearly in over his head) and had a good ear for local issues.
Raab was loathed, but that was at least a much because of what he represented (Brexit, toffs) as his personality. I find him a rather slimy fellow in person but he can speak with sincerity and conviction when giving a speech or on the fly. Put another way, there are *far* more obnoxious Tories than Raab as far as personality goes.
