Worse election defeat

[OSR stands with Israel]

What was the worse election defeat out of these two

[IceAgeComing]

write in: The Canadian Progressive Conservatives in 1993; when they went from 150+ seats and a clear majority government to... two seats; getting less votes than Reform who didn't stand east of Ontario and didn't get a whole lot of votes in Ontario.  It killed the party and the type of Conservatism that led the PCs for most of their history has very little power in the modern Conservative party.

Of the two in the poll; clearly the first: it kept the Republicans out of the Presidency for 20 years; set up a coalition of voters that denied the GOP a congressional majority in all bar two House elections until 1994 and all bar four or five in the Senate - despite two Presidential landslides where Democrats were reduced to one state + DC in the electoral college.  They also had to reinvent themselves and accept a bulk of the new deal and other Democratic moves on social security policy in order to get into the position to actually win again - a fair few times, actually.

The Tories of 1997 are really quite similar to the Tories of 2010: sure policies were articulated in a more compassionate way and they changed on some social issues (especially LGBT+ rights; although they kind of had to since a lot changed in the period) but they fundamentally were the same - hell in terms of privatisation they're now a lot more willing to sell off stuff that they wouldn't have gotten through parliament under Major or Thatcher: thinking of the Royal Mail here.  Also they were out of power for a comparatively short amount of time and managed to get re-elected five years later.  Quite clearly, that's a better position long term than the Republicans had in 1932.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Tories were out for 13 years and you can argue that the GOP would have won in 1940 if not for WW2 .

[IceAgeComing]

That's really rather academic though because that didn't happen.  The Tories could have won had an election happened during the 2000 fuel crisis; but it didn't.  You can use that argument for everything

[jaichind]

I say the GOP 1932 election.  The reason is the CON defeat in 1997 did not stop the CON from doing well in various local elections as well as the EU elections right after 1997. Whereas the GOP after 1932 kept on losing ground in Congressional, Governor and state legislative elections up until 1938 when things started to turn around.

[Hnv1]

Tories were out for 13 years and you can argue that the GOP would have won in 1940 if not for WW2 .

The US wasn't in the war in 1940

[jaichind]

Tories were out for 13 years and you can argue that the GOP would have won in 1940 if not for WW2 .

The US wasn't in the war in 1940

Most polling showed that before the Fall of France in June 1940 FDR would have lost an attempt at a third term.  The polling turned after June 1940 when foreign policy became paramount due to events in Europe and it was thought that FDR was a steady hand at US foreign policy.

[Hatman 🍁]

I agree with IceAge, 1993 PCs wins hands down with out being on the ballot.

Typical that that the OP would forget that. I guess he will try and find away to blame it on socialism?

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

I agree with IceAge, 1993 PCs wins hands down with out being on the ballot.

Typical that that the OP would forget that. I guess he will try and find away to blame it on socialism?

To be fair 1993 would be such an obvious pick there would be no point in even having a poll.

[rob in cal]

   Had Europe not already been at war in 1940 and some sort of fragile peace still been in force in 1940 I don't believe FDR would have run for President again.  This was one of the arguments Italian foreign minister Ciano gave to the Germans for them to not attack Poland in 1939 when he met with Hitler and Ribbentrop in August 1939.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I agree with IceAge, 1993 PCs wins hands down with out being on the ballot.

Typical that that the OP would forget that. I guess he will try and find away to blame it on socialism?

To be fair 1993 would be such an obvious pick there would be no point in even having a poll.

That's why I didn't pick it

[Gary J]

There have been worse defeats, in UK politics. The non-coalition Liberals in 1918, went from the clear Official Opposition to no more than 36 MPs. The undivided Liberal Party was the leading party in the wartime coalition until 1916. After 1918 the official party never recovered first or second place in the House of Commons.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I didnt select parties which were wiped out to an extent that they never won again.

[Harry Hayfield]

I voted for the Republicans in 1932 because their scale was much, much bigger than the Conservatives in 1997. The Republicans vote share went from 58% to 40% and endured an 18% swing, the Conservatives went from 42% in 1992 to 31% in 1997 (-11%) and endured a 10% swing (a swing that, as been pointed out, it took them three elections to over turn)

[Gary J]

I didnt select parties which were wiped out to an extent that they never won again.

OK, how about the British Labour Party in 1931. 287 seats out of 615 in the 1929 general election, when they were the largest party and formed a minority government. A small split over austerity measures during the Great Depression, led PM Ramsay MacDonald to form a National government. The Labour Party was crushed in the 1931 general election, electing 52 seats out of 615 including 6 unendorsed candidates. The party was back in government during the 1940-45 wartime coalition, before winning a large majority in the 1945 general election.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I didnt select parties which were wiped out to an extent that they never won again.

OK, how about the British Labour Party in 1931. 287 seats out of 615 in the 1929 general election, when they were the largest party and formed a minority government. A small split over austerity measures during the Great Depression, led PM Ramsay MacDonald to form a National government. The Labour Party was crushed in the 1931 general election, electing 52 seats out of 615 including 6 unendorsed candidates. The party was back in government during the 1940-45 wartime coalition, before winning a large majority in the 1945 general election.

Wiki says Ramsay MacDonald was still PM after that election. And anyway i said "worse" not "worst" as these I felt were similar defeats

Republicans and Tories were in power for over a decade

During their peak (1980s for tories, Coolidge presidency for republicans) they were very popular and their opposition was very divided

Their last term in office they grew more and more unpopular due to the perceived inability to govern the country and deal with their problems

The opposition party united around the candidate who promised change and was a new type of candidate for them and won in a historic landslide for that party

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Yes, but Ramsey and his allies were not supported by the rump Labour Party (led by Henderson at that election) - the Party expelled all people propping up the National government.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

And funnily enough Labour's sister party in Australia suffered an equally dire landslide defeat that same year, with the left of the party splitting to form Lang Labor, the right splitting to merge with the Nationalists to form the USP (which would eventually became the Liberal Party we know and, err, love today) leading to a loss of 32 of of its 46 seats.

Australia has also had some pretty outrageously one-sided defeats at a state level - just recently there was the Northern Territory obliteration of CLP, and before that the defeat of Bligh's Queensland Labor down to about six seats and the less devestating but still impressive blowout in NSW in 2011.

[IceAgeComing]

I actually think that there's a pretty strong case in arguing that the 2015 LNP loss in Queensland was worse than the 2012 Labor loss - the ALP had been in power in Queensland for 23 years bar a single three year term (which was a National/Liberal government propped up by an independent, not even a majority one); its natural that you're going to get a big loss after being in power that long in a state like Queensland and especially so with an unpopular federal government - the reason that the loss was as extensive as it was was really that the ALP was right down at its core vote and that Greens and other left-leaning voters just didn't preference the ALP and let their vote exhaust which really hurts Labor; plus Katter stood a full ticket and got over 10% of the votes almost all from Labor, none of which really transfered.

In 2015 the LNP pissed away the biggest majority government anywhere in Australia in a single term after only three years when before that they hadn't won a majority since the days of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the malapportionment that kept them in power for 30+ years (for those who don't know; they basically drew four zones in the state and said that all four of those zones needed to have the same number of seats; meaning that country seats which traditional help the old National party had like a quarter of the voters that seats in Brisbane or the other Queensland cities); the Premier lost his (admittedly quite marginal) seat; they gave Labor a clear win in the Two Party Preferred vote (due to left-leaning voters willing to preference them again; Katter not standing everywhere helped) and let them form a minority government.  Sure there was also federal issues there (different government though) but that shouldn't explain entirely how the LNP didn't manage to retain at least a decent sized majority considering where they were coming from...

One thing that we ought to consider is the long-term impact of an election and that suggests to me that the 2012 Queensland election, while being a terrible result for the ALP on the night; wasn't actually as bad as it appeared; unlike the UK Tories after 97 or the Republicans through the 1930s - or hell; even UK Labour during much of the 1980s - they weren't toxic for a significant number of voters for many years afterwards: three years after giving them a good kicking voters were willing to vote for them or at least preference them above the LNP again.  The 2016 NT election night be a better example; but we'll have to wait and see what happens to the CLP...

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

True, but I think the OP was asking for the more theatrical defeats, where a party is reduced to a nub. Like, when you're going through Wikipedia and clicking "next election" and then suddenly the visceral thrill you get when you see the a government lose more than three-quarters of it seats. I view Queensland 2015 as more of a reversion to the mean - pretty embarrassing for the LNP (and the Abbott years were littered with such humiliating underperformances) that they managed to outright lose. I think the thing with state elections in Australia, is they seem heavily managerial (i.e. people view their Premier's on a more "mayor-like" level, so are more willing to reward or punish across their ideological lines that they are more locked into federally? Perhaps that's a bad interpretation.

And seeing as we've mentioned Canada, and we're talking about state elections: Canadian state elections are a good source of amusing wipeouts. (and because Canadian parties never die, the defeated parties normally hang around the ether before magically reviving themselves twenty years later).

[IceAgeComing]

New Brunswick 1987 (I think) was entertaining for that; the PCs went from a majority government to... zero seats: as the Liberals sweep every seat in the legislature.

[the506]

The fall of the BC NDP in 2001 was almost as entertaining, they were actually running "elect an NDP opposition" ads at one point for fear they might be shut out or fall to 3rd behind the Greens. They managed to salvage 2 seats out of 79.

The Alberta PCs in 2015 deserve mention too, both for how quick their fall from grace was after 44 years, and the way they ended up bleeding votes on both the left and the right.

[Phony Moderate]

Scottish Labour in 2015. 2011 and 2016 weren't much better either.

[mvd10]

AWS in Poland went from 201 seats and 34% of the vote in 1997 to 0 seats and 5.6% of the vote in 2001. In 2005 the Polish social democrats dropped from 41% of the vote in 2001 to 12% of the vote. And then there is PASOK in Greece.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The Turkish 2002 general election is probably the craziest example of this. Every single party (with the exception of the moderate wing of the banned Islamist party Virtue, which coalesced around the youthful Erdogan to form the AKP, and three other MP's who had jumped on the CHP train) was kicked out of office. PM Bulent Ecevit's Democratic Left party had a 21 point swing against it getting 1 percent of the vote. His squabbling junior coalition partners: MHP and Motherland has a respective ten and eight percent swing against them. The conservative wing of Virtue, Felicity, was also kicked.  Former PM's Tansu Cillar's conservative DYP, in opposition (though dogged by corruption cases, and her shambolic period in office) just fell under the threshold. And finally, the New Turkey Party - intended to be a successor for the Democratic Left, and containing half of its parliamentary party, got even less than its beleaguered parent organisation. (Notably that election also had a wannabee Berlusconi, Cem Uzan, running a pretty deranged campaign that got about seven percent of the vote)