Three takeaways from the 2024 metro mayor elections
Residents of 10 areas across England cast their votes last week to decide who should be their next metro mayor. Here are three key takeaways from the results of these elections.
Residents of 10 areas across England cast their votes last week to decide who should be their next metro mayor. Here are three key takeaways from the results of these elections.
Residents of 10 areas across England cast their votes last week to decide who should be their next metro mayor. Here are three key takeaways from the results of these elections.
One of the key findings from our polling was the importance of the candidate over the party. We can see this, to a degree, playing out in last week’s elections, by comparing vote shares in the elections to what the polls are saying at the national level (April 29, BBC).
As seen above in Figure 1, on the Labour side, Steve Rotherham (68 per cent) and Andy Burham (63 per cent) were well above the national share (44 per cent). In Liverpool City Region in particular, this is likely reflecting the large support for Labour in the area. But it would be surprising this wasn’t in part at least affected by the popularity of the candidates themselves.
It is likely a clearer cut for the Conservative candidates in the West Midlands and Tees Valley – two places that are hardly Tory heartlands. In the West Midlands, we have seen a tight race, Parker winning marginally the metro mayoral position (0.2 percentage points). Despite losing the election, Street considerably outperformed his party’s national poll prediction.
For Tees Valley, Ben Houchen (53.6 per cent) also did considerably better than what his party is polling nationally. And this result contrasted with what happened locally. In Hartlepool, the only local authority up for election in the area this year, we can see this being reflected too (see Figure 2). Only 33.7 per cent of voters voted Conservative at the council election, but 50 per cent voted for Houchen at the metro mayoral election. And it was the same for the Police and Crime Commissioner election, which switched from Conservative to Labour.
In what feels like a change from previous elections, the outcomes of the metro mayoral contest feature prominently in the national media. Traditionally, we have seen local elections being covered in local newspapers. This is not what happened this time over.
Labour’s Claire Ward elected first mayor of East Midlands as Sunak gets boost in Tees Valley after Tory losses – live https://t.co/2ohJZ1gblg
— The Guardian (@guardian) May 4, 2024
Andy Street loses the West Midlands mayoralty in a shock defeat for the Conservatives https://t.co/i7zt9DWD06
— Standard News (@standardnews) May 4, 2024
Andy Burnham wins third term as Greater Manchester mayor https://t.co/GGl4KncRR1
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 4, 2024
The national interest was mirrored by media coverage in relation to specific metro mayoral candidates – Street losing West Midlands or Burham keeping Greater Manchester – and what this means for Westminster and upcoming general election. To some extent, this interest suggests that devolution has created positions in local government that are of national significance in a way that goes beyond speculation about the outcome of the general election.
A more concerning result from the elections was that turnout was down. Voter turnout has decreased in all mayoralties, except for South Yorkshire Combined Authority (see Figure 3).
An argument for devolution is that it should engage more voters in local politics. But continued low turnouts show that there is still work to be done by metro mayors to promote the institution and show voters why it is worth to go out and vote.
One brighter spot was that turnout in the North East – a new mayoral area – was higher than in the metro mayoral elections in most other combined authority areas. But that it was half the turnout in the last general election (67.3 per cent) underscores the scale of the challenge.
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