Landslide victory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In politics, a landslide victory (or just a landslide) is the victory of a candidate or political party by an overwhelming majority in an election.

Landslides can occur when one candidate or party is perceived as far superior to its opponents, through unfair elections, or as a result of particular voting systems which may produce distorted or disproportionate results.

The opposite of a landslide is a wipeout.

In general, any British general election which results in a majority of over 100 seats tends to be described as a landslide. Notable examples include:

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, 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 be amplified by the eventual result (for instance, Labour achieved a 66-seat majority in 2005 despite securing only 35% of the vote); conversely, parties can poll very highly and achieve disproportionately low numbers of MPs. In 1992, for example, sitting Conservative Prime Minister John Major polled more votes than any party leader before or since, but was returned with a precarious majority of just 21.

  • 1936 - the greatest electoral votes difference between winner and opponent (Roosevelt 523 to Landon 8)
  • 1964 - the highest percentage for winner (Lyndon B. Johnson 61%)
  • 1972 - the greatest percentage difference between winner and opponent (Nixon 60.7% to McGovern 37.8%)
  • 1984 - the highest number of electoral votes (Reagan 525)
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.