Parachute candidate

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A parachute candidate (also known as a "carpetbagger" in the United States) is a pejorative term^[1] for an election candidate who does not live in, and has little connection to, the area they are running to represent. The allegation is thus that the candidate is being “parachuted in” for the job by a desperate political party that has no reliable talent local to the district or state or that the party (or the candidate himself/herself) wishes to give a candidate an easier election than would happen in one's own home area.

Canada[]

• Chrystia Freeland faced allegations of being parachuted in by the Liberal Party to contest a 2013 by-election in safe seat Toronto Centre, given she was living in New York City at the time. She ultimately won the seat.^[2]
• In 2008, the New Democratic Party nominated Phyllis Artiss of St. John's for the riding of Labrador. Artiss was nominated in the absence of any local candidate, and admitted that her candidacy was not ideal: "It would be much better to have someone from Labrador who has lived there all their lives or much of their lives and worked there, and I haven't done that."^[1]
• Kellie Leitch was accused of being a parachute candidate when she sought the Conservative nomination in the riding of Simcoe-Grey in Ontario. Leitch was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and worked in Toronto at the time of her nomination.^[3][4]
• Patrick Brown, who had previously been MP for Barrie and MPP for Simcoe North, was criticized as a parachute candidate when he announced his campaign for Mayor of Brampton in 2018.^[5] Brown ultimately was successful in his mayoral bid.^[6]

New Zealand[]

• In 2017 Deborah Russell won selection for the safe Labour seat of New Lynn, in south-east 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 but lost to Russell who was backed by Labour's Council because of her finance expertise and a pledge to have more women in electorates. Upon winning selection Russell moved to the electorate.^[7][8]

Republic of Ireland[]

• Avril Doyle stood for Fine Gael at the 2004 European elections in the Ireland East constituency, despite being from Dublin, and was considered a parachute candidate.^[9]
• George Lee was a successful parachute candidate for Fine Gael at the 2009 Dublin South by-election.^[10]
• Journalist Susan O'Keeffe was described as a parachute candidate by local candidate Veronica Cawley when she stood for Labour in Sligo–North Leitrim at the 2011 general election; O'Keeffe is a native of Dublin but lived in Sligo at the time.^[11][12][13]
• Lorraine Mulligan was described as a parachute candidate when she stood for Labour at the 2014 Dublin West by-election, despite living in Dublin Central.^[14]
• Catherine Noone stood for Fine Gael in Dublin West at the 2016 general election; she later attempted to be "parachuted" in Dublin South-West before standing in Dublin Bay North at the 2020 general election.^[15]
• Sheila Nunan stood for the Labour at the 2019 European elections in the Ireland South constituency, despite living in Dublin. Her team replied that she lived near the border with County Wicklow and her parents are from County Kerry, both counties located in the South constituency.^[16][17] Michael McNamara claimed that "a parachute candidate could look like desperation. We [the Labour Party] need to be relevant and have ideas that are relevant to people in rural Ireland."^[18]

United Kingdom[]

Parachute candidates are common in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Westminster system historically emphasizes party discipline over responsiveness to constituencies. Margaret Thatcher represented Finchley despite living in Chelsea, London.^[19]

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. 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 63% are local.^[19]

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 important. Election advertisements mention the candidate's party or party leader less often, and emphasize local connections. Such a change produces MPs that are more attentive to local issues, but may be detrimental to Britain's first-past-the-post system designed to create broad parties that party whips stabilize.^[19]

• Roy Jenkins was so unfamiliar with Glasgow, he later wrote, that on arrival to campaign for 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.^[19] Jenkins won the election, taking the seat from the Scottish Conservatives.^[20]
• Shaun Woodward defected from the Conservative Party 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.^[21][22] Woodward did not run for re-election in his safe Conservative seat of Witney in Oxfordshire, instead being selected for the ultra-safe Labour seat of St Helens South in Merseyside. Labour Minister Chris Mullin wrote later in his diaries that "the New Labour elite parachuting [Woodward] into a safe seat ... [was] one of New Labour's vilest stitch-ups ... [it] made my flesh creep."^[23]
• Luciana Berger was an example of Labour parachuting a middle-class southerner into one of its traditional heartland seats, in her case the northern working-class safe 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 asked by a local radio station to answer basic questions about Liverpool she was unable to, and during the candidate selection process stayed at local MP Jane Kennedy's house rather than make any permanent home in the area. The media raised suggestions that she was only selected for the seat because of her close connections to the Blair family.^[24] She went on to win the seat in 2010 and retain it in 2015 and 2017. After joining the Liberal Democrats in 2019, she unsuccessfully contested the Greater London seat of Finchley and Golders Green in the 2019 general election. She made the decision to stand there because of the seat's high 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.^[25][26]
• 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 whilst working as political advisers. Both would later serve as cabinet ministers and fight against each other in the 2010 party leadership election.
• Douglas Carswell defected from the Conservatives to the UK Independence Party in 2014, in turn displacing the existing UKIP candidate in his constituency of Clacton. Given Carswell was living in London at the time, he was accused carpetbagging by the former UKIP candidate.^[27]
• George Galloway was expelled from Labour in 2003 and, despite previously representing Glasgow Kelvin, did not contest a Glasgow seat in 2005. Instead, he stood for the Respect Party in the Greater London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, where he used his opposition to the Iraq War and the local Muslim population to gain the seat from Labour. Tottenham MP and Constitutional Affairs Minister David Lammy said he was a carpetbagger who had whipped up racial tensions.^[28] After standing down from Bethnal Green and Bow in 2010, he had a two-year hiatus from parliament. In a 2012 by-election, he stood for Respect in the West Yorkshire seat of Bradford West, also with a high local Muslim population, where he made a point of not drinking and again gained the seat from Labour.^[29] He lost Bradford West in 2015 to Labour's Naz Shah, after a divisive campaign.^[30] Since then, he has made further attempts to parachute himself into constituencies in order to return to parliament. As an independent, he unsuccessfully contested Manchester Gorton in 2017 and West Bromwich East in 2019.^[31][32] He also 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.^[33][34]

United States[]

U.S. Senate[]

• Former U.S. Senator Scott Brown ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for U.S. Senate in 2014 in New Hampshire, despite having previously represented Massachusetts in the Senate as recently as two years prior. Brown's family had previously resided in New Hampshire, and he personally owns a vacation home in the state.
• Former Reagan administration diplomat Alan Keyes, a resident of Maryland, ran unsuccessfully as a Republican during the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election.^[35] Notably, he had previously made two unsuccessful runs for the Senate in Maryland.
• First Lady Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate from New York in 2000 after having bought a house in Chappaqua, New York (a wealthy suburb of New York City) in 1999, prior to the election. She had previously resided in Illinois and Arkansas.
• Former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate in New York in 1964, serving from 1965 until his death on June 6, 1968. He had previously resided in his home state of Massachusetts, although as a child he had also lived in the New York City neighborhood of Riverdale as well as Bronxville, a suburb north of New York City. During the campaign, Kennedy gave a speech in response to criticisms from his opponents over his alleged lack of ties to the state.
• Former 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney was elected Senator of Utah in 2018, despite previously being Governor of Massachusetts.

U.S. House of Representatives[]

• Former Maryland State Senator and Maryland Republican Party Chairman Alex Mooney was elected in 2014 to represent West Virginia's 2nd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.^[36]
• Businessman Trey Hollingsworth moved from Tennessee to Indiana in September 2015. He ran as a Republican to represent Indiana's 9th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, and won the election in 2016.^[37]

State-level[]

• Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, despite having not held any political office or position in Virginia won election in 2013 to become Virginia's 72nd Governor.

See also[]

• List of democracy and elections-related topics

References[]