Term for political candidate with little connection to district
A parachute candidate, or carpetbagger in the United States, is a pejorative term[1] for an election candidate who does not live in the area they are running to represent and has little connection to it. The allegation is thus that a desperate political party lacking reliable talent local to the district or region is "parachuting" the candidate in for the job or that the party (or the candidate themselves) wishes to give a candidate an easier election than would happen in their home area. The term also carries the implication that the candidacy has been imposed without regard to the existing local hierarchy.[2]
Australia
Australian Labor Party
Due to its factions (Labor Left, Labor Right, and Independent Labor), Labor often has arrangements in place for preselections, which would often result in parachuting candidates.[citation needed]
- In 2004, musician and activist Peter Garrett was preselected as the Australian Labor Party's candidate for the safe seat of Kingsford Smith at the federal election that year due to the intervention of leader Mark Latham, despite opposition from the local ALP branch, who labelled him an outsider. The CFMEU issued a statement criticising his selection as "a pathetic version of political celebrity squares".[3] Regardless, Garrett was elected to the House of Representatives.
- In 2007, journalist Maxine McKew was preselected as Labor candidate in the forthcoming federal election for Bennelong, represented by then-Prime Minister John Howard. McKew did not live in the electorate then, and sold her home in Mosman to move before the election. She went on to defeat Howard, becoming the first candidate to unseat a sitting prime minister in an election since 1929, when Jack Holloway defeated Stanley Bruce at Flinders.[3]
- In 2013, athlete Nova Peris was preselected as Labor's leading candidate for the Senate in the Northern Territory. Peris was born and raised in the Northern Territory, but her selection was received with controversy due to her celebrity status and the personal intervention of leader and Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who described the selection as a "captain's pick".[3]
- In 2013, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd asked Jason Yat-Sen Li to run as the Labor candidate for the seat of Bennelong at the 2013 federal election even though he did not live in the electorate. He lost the election.
- Jane Garrett, a former minister in the First Andrews Ministry in Victoria, was parachuted into the number one position in the Eastern Victoria Region at the 2018 Victorian state election, a seat that future MP Daniel Mulino vacated to run for the Division of Fraser in Melbourne's western suburbs. Garrett had been the MP for the electoral district of Brunswick, which was becoming increasingly marginal, and was criticised for her role in a dispute between the Country Fire Authority, the United Firefighters Union, and the state government in her capacity as Minister for Emergency Services.[4][5]
- Daniel Mulino is the current MP for the Division of Fraser in Melbourne's western suburbs. Mulino had previously been a member of the Victorian Legislative Council for the Eastern Victoria Region, a seat he vacated for Jane Garrett. Before his tenure in the Parliament of Victoria, Mulino was a councillor and mayor for the City of Casey. Mulino lived in the electorate of Fraser in the 2019 Australian federal election, in which he was elected.
- Former Premier of New South Wales Kristina Keneally was preselected as Labor candidate for the 2017 Bennelong by-election. She lived 800 metres outside the electorate, which, combined with her high profile, attracted accusations of parachuting.[3]
- Keneally sought preselection for the House of Representatives again in 2021, this time for the electorate of Fowler in western Sydney despite living in the city's affluent northern suburbs. She was also criticised for making the move despite retiring member Chris Hayes having already endorsed local Vietnamese Australian lawyer Tu Le as his successor in a working-class, migrant-rich neighbourhood. With heavy publicity drawn toward what is normally one of the safest seats in Australian politics, Keneally suffered a massive swing against the previous result and lost the seat for Labor for the only time in its 13-election existence, with parts of the area being held as far back as 1934 when it was part of Werriwa. This resulted in a former Liberal Party member who turned independent, Vietnamese Australian and former refugee Dai Le, being elected.[6][7][8]
- Andrew Charlton, a former adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was criticised for being parachuted into the Division of Parramatta to succeed retiring MP Julie Owens at the 2022 Australian federal election over local candidates who were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Before the electoral campaign, Charlton resided in Sydney's eastern suburbs in Bellevue Hill in a property worth over $A16 million and only purchased a property in the electorate once preselected.[9]
- Mathew Hilakari, Labor's candidate for the newly established electorate of Point Cook, was parachuted in for the 2022 Victorian state election. Hilakari, before pre-selection, was residing in Melbourne's southeastern suburbs in Seaford. He is also the convenor for Labor's Socialist Left faction (of which Premier Daniel Andrews is a part) in Victoria.[10]
- Anthony Byrne lived outside his electorate, Holt, in the neighbouring electorate of La Trobe.[11]
- Clare O'Neil previously lived in East Melbourne, outside her electorate, Hotham, but bought a house in Oakleigh in 2020.[12]
- Maria Vamvakinou: As of 2016[update] she lived in Northcote, which lies outside her electorate, Calwell.[13]
- Mark Dreyfus lives outside his electorate, Isaacs.[14]
- Ged Kearney: As of 2018, Kearney didn't live in her electorate, Batman at the time.[15]
- Mary Doyle: At the time of her preselections, Doyle didn't live in the Division of Aston.[16] Doyle lived in the suburb of Mitcham, located in the nearby Deakin electorate.[17]
Coalition
- In 2013, Liberal National Senator Barnaby Joyce was preselected as Nationals candidate for the New South Wales seat of New England. Joyce was raised in Tamworth, within the electorate, but had lived in Queensland for over twenty years and represented the state in the Senate since 2005.[3]
- Georgina Downer was Liberal candidate for the electorate of Mayo in the 2018 by-election. Daughter of long-serving MP for Mayo Alexander Downer, Downer had grown up in the area and proclaimed that she was "coming home" in the by-election. However, she had lived most of her life in Adelaide and Melbourne and sought preselection for a seat in the latter during the 2016 election. She lost to incumbent Rebekha Sharkie.[3]
- After the resignation of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull from Parliament in 2018, Dave Sharma was preselected as the Liberal candidate in the resulting by-election at Wentworth. Sharma did not live in the electorate at the time. He narrowly lost the by-election, but successfully contested the seat again several months later in the 2019 Australian federal election. In the 2022 federal general election, Independent candidate Allegra Spender defeated Sharma.[3]
- Former President of the Australian Labor Party Warren Mundine was a parachute candidate for the Liberal Party of Australia in the Division of Gilmore at the 2019 federal election to succeed retiring MP Ann Sudmalis. Prior to Mundine's selection, the local party branches had preselected Grant Schultz, whose candidacy would eventually be overridden by the party's state executive to select Mundine instead at the request of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.[18][19] Fiona Phillips of the Australian Labor Party defeated Mundine: she received a two-party swing of 3.34 per cent while Schultz contested the electorate as an independent candidate, receiving 7,585 votes.
- Despite representing Menzies for nearly thirty-one years, Kevin Andrews never lived there. He lived in neighbouring Jagajaga.[11]
- Jason Wood, the MP for La Trobe, lives with his family in Mount Dandenong, approximately 11kms outside his electorate, in the Division of Casey.[20][21]
- Brett Whiteley did not live in his electorate of Braddon during the 2016 election campaign, but in neighbouring Lyons, at Squeaking Point near Port Sorell.[22][11]
- Eric Hutchinson did not live in his electorate, Lyons, but in neighbouring Bass.[11]
- Russell Broadbent: As of 2021[update], Broadbent, the MP for Monash, and his wife lived outside his electorate in Pakenham, Victoria, in the Division of La Trobe.[23][24]
France
France has a long history of parachute candidates.[37] Extreme examples have been candidates from mainland France who ran for election in overseas France. In 1963, Michel Debré was parachuted to the Indian Ocean island of Réunion nearly 6,000 miles away from the mainland,[38] where he won a by-election and served as deputy for seventeen years.[39] In the small North American territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, three candidates from the mainland have attempted to win its constituency seat since 2002, most recently Patricia Chagnon in 2024.[40]
New Zealand
In 2017, Deborah Russell won selection for the safe Labour seat of New Lynn, in West Auckland, despite being from Whangamōmona, a small town in the Manawatū-Whanganui region. She beat out Greg Presland, a New Lynn resident for 30 years who had the backing of the local members. However, Labour's Council backed Russell because of her finance expertise and a pledge to have more women in electorates. Upon winning selection, Russell moved to the electorate.[51][52] She was elected in the 2017 election and re-elected in 2020 before being defeated in the electorate in 2023.
United Kingdom
Parachute candidates are common in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Westminster system historically emphasizes party discipline over responsiveness to constituencies. For example, Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for over eleven years, represented Finchley despite living in Chelsea, London.[57] As far back as the 1900s, the then-dominant Liberal Party were parachuting candidates from England into safe seats in Scotland, including Winston Churchill, elected MP for Dundee in 1908. This led to a formal protest movement, called Young Scots, arguing that objections to carpet-baggers were based on a lack of understanding of the political will of their constituents on matters like Home Rule.[58]
A 2013 YouGov survey found that support for a hypothetical candidate rose by 12 points after voters learned that his opponent had moved to the area two years earlier and by 30 points if the opponent lived 120 miles away.[59] The percentage of local MPs rose, according to Michael Rush of the University of Exeter, from 25% in 1979 to 45% in 1997; Ralph Scott of Demos calculates that as of 2014[update] 63% are local.[57] According to surveys, public trust in all MPs has decreased, but trust in the local MP has increased, making pre-existing connections to seats more critical. Election advertisements emphasize local connections more than they mention the candidate's party or its leader. Such a change produces MPs who are more attentive to local issues, but may be detrimental to Britain's first-past-the-post voting system designed to create broad parties that party whips stabilize.[57]
Labour Party
- Roy Jenkins was so unfamiliar with Glasgow, he later wrote, that on his arrival to campaign at the 1982 Glasgow Hillhead by-election its skyline was "as mysterious to me as the minarets of Constantinople" to Russian troops during the Russo-Turkish War.[57] Campaigning as a Social Democrat, Jenkins won the election, taking the seat from the Scottish Conservatives.[60]
- Shaun Woodward, who was first elected as a Conservative MP in 1997, defected to the Labour Party in 1999. He faced much criticism from former Conservative colleagues, particularly when he refused to resign and fight a by-election.[61][62] In 2001, Woodward did not contest his safe Conservative seat of Witney in Oxfordshire, instead being selected for the similarly ultra-safe Labour seat of St Helens South in Merseyside. During the early days of the 2001 general election campaign, Labour minister Chris Mullin wrote in his diary that "the New Labour elite ... parachut[ing] [Woodward] into one of [its] safe seats ... [was] one of New Labour's vilest stitch-ups", and that listening to him campaigning as a Labour candidate "made my flesh creep."[63]
- Luciana Berger was a middle-class Londoner parachuted into the north-western working-class safe Labour seat of Liverpool Wavertree. She was heavily criticised for having no connection to the Wavertree constituency or Liverpool when she first ran in 2010. When a local radio station asked her basic questions about the culture of Liverpool, she could not answer them and, during the selection process, she stayed at the house of retiring local MP Jane Kennedy rather than resettle in the area. Some figures in the media suggested that she was only selected for the seat because of her close connections to the family of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.[64] Berger won the seat in 2010 with a slightly larger majority than Kennedy had in 2005, against the national trend, then retained it in 2015 and 2017. After joining the Liberal Democrats in 2019, she unsuccessfully contested the Greater London seat of Finchley and Golders Green at the 2019 general election. She chose to stand there because of the seat's large Jewish population and Remain vote, as well as her affinity towards living in London and choice to raise her children there rather than in Liverpool.[65][66]
- David and Ed Miliband were selected to fight safe Labour seats in northern England, South Shields and Doncaster North respectively, despite being Oxford graduates who were born, raised, and living in London while working as political advisers. David was elected for the first time in 2001, and Ed in 2005. Both would later serve as ministers under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and fight against each other in the 2010 party leadership election.
Conservative Party
- Boris Johnson's selection for the ultra-safe Conservative seat of Henley in 2001, after the party's central office parachuted him in,[67] was described by senior local Tory Mike McInnes as "a disaster for the integrity of modern politics" and "arrogant in the extreme", Johnson having "blustered in with no knowledge about the constituency". McInnes commented that he could not see him supporting a hypothetical local old lady who was having problems with her housing benefit and asked, "Are people going to feel comfortable going to him?" Likewise, Johnson's main rival, Liberal Democrat candidate Catherine Bearder, gave him a withering assessment. She said: "In Henley, you can put a blue rosette on a donkey and it will get elected. And that's what happened in 2001... He clearly just wanted to be an MP. As soon as London came up, he was off out."[67]
- Prior to the 2024 general election, Richard Holden, who was serving as the Chairman of the Conservative Party, represented the marginal seat of North West Durham, which he won in the 2019 general election with a slender 2.4% majority. He was later selected for the safe Conservative seat of Basildon and Billericay after he was imposed as the candidate by the Conservative Party against local opposition; Holden was the only contender allowed to stand on the shortlist.[68] This led to accusations of carpetbagging, especially after it emerged that, in January 2024, he described himself as "bloody loyal to the north-east", and denied he would seek a safer seat.[69]
Minor parties
- In 1974, Enoch Powell left the Conservative Party and joined the Ulster Unionists, becoming the Westminster MP for South Down, despite having no Ulster connections. In 2002, when ex-Tory MP Andrew Hunter (who had family and Orange Order connections with Northern Ireland) joined the Democratic Unionist Party, the UUP accused him of being a carpet-bagger. It was pointed out the criticism was "a little hollow" considering the UUP's prior acceptance and promotion of Powell.[70]
- George Galloway was expelled from Labour in 2003 over Iraq War-related controversies and, despite previously representing Glasgow Kelvin, stood for the Respect Party in the Greater London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow at the 2005 general election, where he used his opposition to the war and the local Muslim population to gain the seat from Labour. Constitutional Affairs Minister David Lammy said he was a carpetbagger who had whipped up racial tensions.[71] After standing down from Bethnal Green and Bow in 2010, he stood for Respect at a 2012 by-election in the West Yorkshire seat of Bradford West. Another seat with a high local Muslim population, Galloway made a point of not drinking alcohol and again gained the seat from Labour.[72] He lost Bradford West in 2015 to Labour's Naz Shah.[73] As an independent, he unsuccessfully contested Manchester Gorton in 2017 and West Bromwich East in 2019.[74][75] He attempted to be selected as the Brexit Party candidate in the Cambridgeshire seat of Peterborough in a 2019 by-election but the party selected local businessman Mike Greene.[76][77] Having formed the Workers Party of Britain, Galloway returned to parliament at the 2024 Rochdale by-election in which there were a variety of problems with the major-party candidates and he ran a campaign critical of Israel over its role in the Israel–Hamas war.[78][79][80][81]
- Douglas Carswell defected from the Conservatives to the UK Independence Party in 2014, in turn displacing the existing UKIP candidate for the forthcoming general election in his constituency of Clacton. As Carswell was living in London then, the former UKIP candidate accused him of carpetbagging.[82]