Most left-wing seat held by a right-wing party and most right-wing seat held by a left-wing party...

[King of Kensington]

...by country.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

In the UK maybe some of the eternally labour seats that flipped to the Tories in 2019?

[morgieb]

Define left-wing. Because plenty of right-wing seats here just flipped to a ‘progressive’ alliance….

[Former President tack50]

ITT: People don't realize most countries don't use FPTP or single member districts

In any case, trying to adapt the question, for Spain in terms of regional premiers it's quite simple; the most left-wing region held by a right-wing party is Galicia though one wonders whether it was Feijoo being personally popular there or if PP is popular there. Either way the next Galician election will be interesting (especially since the nationalists could win for the first time ever)

As for the opposite, I suppose Cantabria is the biggest example. Regional premier Revilla is insanely personally popular and leads a centre-left regionalist party. Second place would go to La Rioja, where PSOE narrowly taking over in 2019 was one of the most underrated stories of that election.

[Mike88]

Subscribe what Tack said regarding FPTP.

Anyway, in Portugal, there are some examples of strong leftwing places governed by the rightwing, and very rightwing places controlled by the left. Reguengos de Monsaraz, in the deep Alentejo region, is governed by the PSD but in general elections, the left easily wins here. Leiria city is a very rightwing city, it votes easily in the rightwing in general elections, but is currently governed by the PS by a wide margin.

Reguengos de Monsaraz, leftwing vs rightwing:

2021 local elections: 42.1% vs 54.4%
2022 general elections: 58.1% vs 39.1%

Leiria, leftwing vs rightwing:

2021 local elections: 59.9% vs 34.7%
2022 general elections: 41.8% vs 53.8%

Leftwing = PS+CDU+BE+PAN+Livre
Rightwing = PSD+CHEGA+IL+CDS

[morgieb]

Define left-wing. Because plenty of right-wing seats here just flipped to a ‘progressive’ alliance….

I'm gonna be simplistic and just compare Labor and Liberal:

Most left-wing seat held by the Coalition: Probably Bass. Urban-ish seat that's probably only Liberal held because of a mavericky/moderate incumbent.

Most right-wing seat held by Labor: I think Bennelong would be a decent answer, a lot of the swing was influenced by the Asian vote which is usually conservative so as long as the Libs don't go too hard to the point of racism on China and it's usually a Liberal-voting seat. Could also make a case for Tangney, which only voted Labor because of the massive WA swing.

[kaoras]

Diego de Almagro, Chile, is an inmemorial communist mining stronghold, is consistently the most left wing comuna of the country. In 2021 it was Boric best comuna nationwide with 75,4% of the vote. Despite that, it elected a rightist mayor on 2021 for the first time in its history with 50% of the vote against 44% for the communist candidate (despite a nationwide left wave, the biggest on record). Likely local factors since PC had ruled the town since 2004

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In the US I'll guess CA-25 and ME-02.

[If my soul was made of stone]

In the US I'll guess CA-25 and ME-02.

CA-25 is reactionary in the parochial class grievances and cultural monocle-popping typical of anti-urbanist Sun Belt suburbia (Goldwater cleaned up in many such parts of outer LA, not just OC and SD). ME-02 is historically a slice of Yankee New England sprinkled with French-Canadians, parochial in opposite ways and quite fond of its types in Congress both Dem and GOP, including many who would later hold statewide office, but now mainly totalized into typical American polarizations with your post-industrial meth havens and resort country and hippie college towns and Native reservations amidst unwashed "WWC" masses for those of your ilk to navel-gaze about producing no real total political character.

The sui generis liquid-postmodern pathologies of American politics make it difficult to analyze districts in aggregate through such a lens. Perhaps I should call MD-06 the most right-wing Dem seat on account of it smashing together inner DC managerial gentrifiers, suburban SALT/"muh property value" concern trolls, post-extractive malaise in Western Maryland, and German Yankees-turned-Q-nuts, all under the aegis of a liquor store owner Congressman who carpetbagged there after failing to buy a primary in what's now Raskin's seat at great personal expense. MN-08 most left-wing GOP seat? Choose your own narrative.

[CumbrianLefty]

In the UK maybe some of the eternally labour seats that flipped to the Tories in 2019?

Well yes, but maybe this thread was hoping for something slightly more specific.

Might start the ball rolling with Bassetlaw. As for seats still Labour held, not so sure.

[M0096]

Poland (Senate):
most left-wing seat held by a right wing party:
SD-2: Krzysztof Mróz (PiS) - Jelenia Góra City and Jawor, Kamienna Góra, Karkonosze, Złotoryja Counties (southern Lower Silesia)
SD-86: Lidia Staroń (Ind. supported by PiS) - Olsztyn City and Nidzica, Olsztyn, Szczytno Counties (middle of Warmia-Masuria)

most right-wing seat held by a left wing party:
SD-12: Ryszard Bober (PSL) - Grudziądz City and Brodnica, Golub-Dobrzyń, Grudziądz, Rypin, Wąbrzeźno Counties (north-east Kuyavia-Pomerania)
SD-75: Deputy Marshal of Senate Gabriela Morawska-Stanecka (PPS) - Mysłowice and Tychy Cities + Bieruń-Lędziny County (Upper Silesia)
SD-96: Janusz Pęcherz (PO) - Kalisz City and Jarocin, Kalisz, Pleszew Counties (east Great Poland)

[JimJamUK]

Have there been any voter quizzes or MRPs that map political ideology onto UK constituencies? If not, then it’s hard to say what’s the most left wing/socially liberal Conservative seat vs most right wing/socially conservative Labour seat. Still a few guesses below.

Economically right wing - Places like Gower and Wirral West are largely middle class/retired but vote Labour for cultural reasons. Putney voted for Cameron/May and only flipped because the bottom fell out among the socially liberal Conservative vote. Edinburgh South has Labour as the tactical unionist choice in a very middle class constituency that has voted Tory in devolved/local elections. Places like Angus, East Dunbartonshire, Gordon etc are SNP but would clearly be Tory in England and will quickly start voting for a right wing party should independence be achieved.

Socially right wing - Ex-mining constituencies like the Barnsley’s, Doncaster North, Normanton etc, had very big Leave votes in 2016 and relatively big Brexit Party votes in 2019. They aren’t religiously conservative, but are very culturally conservative. Places like Dagenham and Rainham as well as Rotherham have had significant racial tensions in the past. Birmingham Hall Green/Hodge Hill/Ladywood aren't conservative in the Brexit sense but have Muslim pluralities that probably aren’t massively socially progressive (Birmingham was the epicentre of homophobic protests a few years ago). The Western Isles have a rather traditional Christian population and isn’t very socially liberal either.

Economically left wing - A lot of the 2019 Tory gains come to mind such as Blackpool North or the West Bromwich’s. Very culturally conservative places that voted Labour because they were working class (and in Blackpool’s case, low income pensioners are a hell of a lot more left wing than their voting habits suggest).

Socially left wing - Largely posh central London seats like Chelsea and Fulham, Kensington, Cities of London…Westminster. Most of the population is cosmopolitan and doesn’t care for the kulturkampf, but does care about how much they pay in tax and who it’s going to. Also applies to further out seats like Wimbledon and perhaps Esher and Walton. Pretty much all of them are under threat at the next election from Labour or the Lib Dems.

[parochial boy]

As has been mentioned, it's impossible to say with PR because even nutter land like Schwyz has occasionally voted Socialists to the Conseil National.

If we just go with the first-two-past-the-post style Conseil des Etats then it is actually fairly easy to work out how left or right wing a place is because with a multiparty system but in particular with a immense quantity of data provided by the referendums you can get a pretty accurate picture of how a canton's inhabitants tick.

In which case, the most right wing canton with a left of Ständerat is St Gallen having elected Paul Rechsteiner, who is not only a Socialist but a very marked left wing one. A solid trade unionist who has straight out fustigated "neoliberalism" and votes solidly on the left. He gets elected basically on the back of his big local profile and there seems very little propsect of a Socialist or Green replacing him if he steps down next year as expected. (plus point to Marina Carrobio, a rare Socialist in Ticino, but Ticino's politics are bonkers, so...)

The other way round is a bit more complicated. Jura, Vaud and Neuchâtel all have right of centre conseillers aux états. Except Charles Juillard in Jura, well he is a Christiam Democrat who supported Anne Hidalgo in the French Presidential election; Olivier Français in Vaud is the most progressive PLR politican in parliament and mostly known as being a massive "build train lines everywhere" nut. That just leaves Philippe Bauer in Neuchâtel, who is just a generic bourgeois liberal representing what is the most electorally left wing canton.

[Zinneke]

Off the top of my head I'm gonna go for Open VLD having the mayorship of Gent even if it makes slight sense. It's basically a socially progressive city with a lot of rich people, but one would still expect a left-wing mayor given its reputation.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Canada:

It's hard to say definitively, but for "most right-wing seat held by the left" I'd say Glengarry--Prescott--Russell. It has all the fundamentals of a right-wing, rural Eastern Ontario seat, except it's majority Francophone, the only such federal riding in Ontario. If not for the LPC's strong brand loyalty among Franco-Ontarians, it would be just as right wing as any other riding in that area.

Due to the French factor, I think many rural Quebec seats could fit that mold. There are seats that give nuclear margins to CAQ provincially, but vote BQ federally. I couldn't pick one though, and the left-right axis is really confusing in Quebec so I won't bother.

Most left-wing seat held by the right is pretty easy, because there are usually quite a few seats where a left-wing vote split allows the CPC to sneak through. Not as many currently as the Lib vote is very efficient, but there are some examples. I'll give this title to Pitt Meadows--Maple Ridge in BC. Pretty NDP area provincially, and the combined centre-left (LPC+NDP, Greens didn't run there in 2021) got 57% there to the CPC+PPC's 42%. But there was a strong NDP/LPC split, and Marc Dalton (who is a pretty right-wing member of the CPC) won with merely 37%.

If the Tories did a little better last time out, they could have won Nanaimo--Ladysmith in BC which would be the definitive answer. Very lefty area like much of Vancouver Island, but there was a Green incumbent there. With only 200 more votes, there could have been a Conservative MP in a very left-wing seat.

[Pericles]

In New Zealand, the most right-wing electorate may be held by the Labour Party.


It is certainly a seat that would usually be safe National, and it did have the highest National + ACT vote  in a seat represented by a Labour MP. It is a rural and small town seat in south Canterbury (so south of Christchurch). It is more socially conservative, with a 59% no vote for legalising cannabis. Labour also benefited from the incumbent National MP resigning in disgrace for sending unsolicited pornographic messages to at least five women while they had a strong local candidate.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

If we go to the provincial level, Ontario had a really weird outcome in the election earlier this month. Timmins, traditionally a very left-wing working-class city in northern Ontario, flipped from the NDP for the first time in decades. I believe it actually had the highest Conservative vote share of all 124 ridings, which is nuts. There were local factors at play, Ford made a play for northern Ontario and ran the popular mayor there, and absolutely crushed it in a riding you'd never imagine voting for the right. The NDP-PC swing was 31.6%...even by Canadian standards, that's huge

[CumbrianLefty]

Historically speaking in the UK, Gosport always stood out as a seat much more Tory than it "should" have been - the military connection did a fair amount to explain that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Historically speaking in the UK, Gosport always stood out as a seat much more Tory than it "should" have been - the military connection did a fair amount to explain that.

Looking at the 2019 results, it's crazy. A majority that is almost an absolute majority of the votes. And a majority of 13% in 1997...

[CumbrianLefty]

Though intriguingly that gap was halved in 2001, before the Tories roared ahead.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Richard Ojeda as a Bernie supporting progressive state senator represented an extremely trump supporting west Virginians state senate district

[JimJamUK]

Richard Ojeda as a Bernie supporting progressive state senator represented an extremely trump supporting west Virginians state senate district

Though he won it as a Trump supporter…

[Stranger in a strange land]

Richard Ojeda as a Bernie supporting progressive state senator represented an extremely trump supporting west Virginians state senate district

Though he won it as a Trump supporter…

He was a Bernie in the Primary/Trump in the General voter.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Edinburgh South has Labour as the tactical unionist choice in a very middle class constituency that has voted Tory in devolved/local elections.

The area really has changed a lot though - there's a habit in Scottish political circles to think of the social geography of the country as it was decades ago (and this then gets copied by the rest of us for obvious reasons) when much is quite different. The inner urban part of Edinburgh South (which was still quite posh until relatively recently) is now full of students and the sort of financially strained early-career public sector professionals who mostly are very much not right-wing economically, even if it's probably not right to think of them as left-wing in classical terms.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Edinburgh South has Labour as the tactical unionist choice in a very middle class constituency that has voted Tory in devolved/local elections.

The area really has changed a lot though - there's a habit in Scottish political circles to think of the social geography of the country as it was decades ago (and this then gets copied by the rest of us for obvious reasons) when much is quite different. The inner urban part of Edinburgh South (which was still quite posh until relatively recently) is now full of students and the sort of financially strained early-career public sector professionals who mostly are very much not right-wing economically, even if it's probably not right to think of them as left-wing in classical terms.

Is this to say that Rifkind losing in 1997 was a sign of demographic change in the Pentlands area of Edinburgh?