The following are five of the most notable election landslides from across the world’s major democracies in the 21st century.
Barack Obama
- YEAR: 2008
- COUNTRY: United States
- PARTY: Democratic Party
In 2008, Barack Obama memorable made history as the first African-American to be elected president of the United States – and doing so in a remarkable landslide.
In the Democratic primaries, the little-known senator Barack Obama overcame a strong challenge from Hillary Clinton in an upset victory. Elsewhere, the Republicans chose senator John McCain, who himself fought off a competitive field including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani.
The Democrats already held an advantage due to the unpopularity of sitting US president George Bush, whose approval rating stood at 25%, with 70% disapproving, just before polling day.
Another crucial factor was the economy. In the last year of his Bush’s tenure, the Great Recession occurred, with 59% of voters said to be very concerned about the economy backing Obama, compared to just 38% for McCain, according to the Pew Research Center.
Obama also had many strategic personal advantages over McCain. Among them, Obama was able to project a youthful image compared to McCain, who – if elected – would be the oldest president, at 72. Although McCain framed himself as the more experienced, this effect was negated by Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate, a reliable, long-standing Democrat who would appeal to centrists, blue-collar workers, and white voters.
The Obama campaigned focussed on a positive message that would energise voters, including his “Yes, we can” slogan and famous “Hope” poster.
In the end, Obama won with double opponent McCain’s electoral vote count, winning 365-173. His 69.5 million-strong popular vote count was the most ever cast for a presidential candidate.
Looking at the states, Obama flipped seven states won by the Republicans in 2004, including the ECV-heavy state of Florida.
Perhaps the most surprising triumph was in Indiana, where Obama emerged victorious in a state won by the Republicans by more than 20 percentage points at the previous election. It was their first win in the state since 1964, as well as picking up North Carolina for the first time since 1976.
Even in states he did not win, he performed strongly, such as in Missouri, where he was 4,000 votes (less than 0.15%) short of victory, winning the most votes any Democrat has ever earned in the state.
In addition to the presidential election, the Democrats won a large House majority and eventually obtained a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, allowing Obama to pass the Affordable Care Act, the most significant legislative achievement of the 21st century.
Keir Starmer
- YEAR: 2024
- COUNTRY: United Kingdom
- PARTY: Labour Party
Few would have predicted that after Labour’s thumping in the 2019 election, the next cycle would see the party win in the biggest landslide of the 21st century.
In the intervening period, the Conservative Party had switched between three prime ministers. Boris Johnson was forced to resign after the Partygate while his successor Liz Truss became the shortest-serving PM in UK history, departing in the wake of the disastrous mini-budget.
Much like John Major before his 1997 decimation, Tory leader Rishi Sunak was seen as an uninspiring leader presiding over a divided party and significantly and consistently lagging in opinion polls.
Indeed, Sir Keir Starmer had long been seen as PM-in-waiting, with Labour emerged victorious in consecutive local elections and a string of historical by-election wins.
Starmer has been credited with overhauling the party during his leadership, expelling predecessor Jeremy Corbyn as an effort to eradicate percieved antisemitism, focus on universal political causes, and generally moving the party more to the centre.
When the election was announced, Labour ran a successful, albeit largely unremarkable, so-called “Ming vase” campaign, aiming to run a steady ship and avoid controversy. Their campaign message was simple: “Change”, highlighting 14 years of Tory failure, including on the NHS, immigration, and the cost-of-living crisis.
In the election, Labour won over 400 seats, comprising 63% of the seats in the House of Commons. Ther 174-seat majority was just five short of the Labour Party’s memorable 1997 landslide victory.
Their second-closest competitor, the outgoing Tories, had their worst electoral performance in the party’s 200-year history. The party lost 251 seats, leaving them with 131 MPs, as a record-setting 12 Cabinet ministers lost seats including Penny Mordaunt, Grant Shapps, and Gillian Keegan as well as bigwigs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss.
A remarkable majority by modern day standards, 2024’s results reflected a deep dissatisfaction with the Tory government, a mood for change, and has provides Keir Starmer with a whopping mandate and majority with which he can impose his vision to transform a broken Britain.
Jacques Chirac
- YEAR: 2002
- COUNTRY: France
- PARTY: Rally for the Republic
Though the far-right National Rally is a commercial outfit today, when the party breakthrough in 2002, it was firmly rejected by French society.
In 2002, President Jacques Chirac was seeking re-election for a second term. It seemed inevitable his opponent would be Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin. In fact, just days before the first round of voting, Jospin laughed off the suggestion he would not advance to the two-way run-off.
Though polls put a Chirac-Jospin contest as a toss-up, it was not to happen.
Unexpectedly, far-right stalwart Jean-Marie Le Pen came in second, polling nearly 17% of the vote as Jospin fell 200,000 votes short of advancing. The BBC described the result as “the most staggering election result in European politics in years.”
Factors such as a rise in crime rates, a low voter turnout, and high vote counts tallied by several smaller left-wing parties are thought to be factors in this result.
Almost instantaneously, protestors took to the streets, calling Pen a xenophobe, antisemite, and a racist. Hundreds of thousands marched against Le Pen in the days following, climaxing it as many as 1.3 million rallying on May Day, a record in post-war France.
Following the principle of cordon sanitaire, defeated left-wing parties directed their voters to hold their nose and vote for Chirac, if only to prevent Le Pen gaining power. Across France, trade unions, non-governmental organisations, and newspapers implored voters to prevent a Le Pen presidency.
Incumbent Chirac declared: “I call on all French men and women to gather to defend human rights,” said Mr Chirac. “France needs you, and I need you.”
In the end, the verdict was resounding. Chirac won with over 82% of the vote, the biggest landslide in French history. With Chirac supported by the left-wing bloc, turnout surged by 8% as voters clamoured to thwart the National Rally.
Le Pen, who had previously claimed anything less than 30% to be a “huge disappointment”, won just 17.8%.
As The Economist described it, Chirac won, effectively, “by default”, as Le Pen failed to win any of the nation’s 101 departments or the eight regions.
Chirac’s triumphed was hailed by the western world. US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated he was pleased to see Le Pen “overwhelmingly marginalised and defeated”, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder noted: “The French people have rejected extremism without ambiguity”, and UK PM Tony Blair stated it was “a victory for democracy and a defeat for extremism.”
Justin Trudeau
- YEAR: 2015
- COUNTRY: Canada
- PARTY: Liberal Party
Although not as much as a landslide as the others on this list, the results of Canada’s 2015 election were unusually lobsided for a parliamentary election.
The 2011 election in Canada had the chance of marking a major political realignment. The modern-day Conservatives won their first majority, but more importantly, the more left-leaning perennial third party New Democratic Party pushed the Liberals into a distant third place.
When the 2015 election kicked off, the Tom Mulcair-led NDP have an over 50% chance of victory as incumbent Conservative PM Stephen Harper sought a Pierre Trudeau-tying fourth term. However, Pierre’s son had other plans.
Trudeau, starting third in the three-way race, quickly proved doubters wrong with strong debate performances.
Without wanting to patronise Mr Trudeau, part of his appeal simply came from being handsome and youthful. His father being one of the most famous and lauded Canadians in recent history probably didn’t hurt either!
The Liberal platform, aimed at creating “A Strong Middle Class”, also resonated with many on the left, including tax raises on the highest earners and easing the middle-class tax burden, greater child benefit support, and increased investment in infrastructure including public transport and housing.
While Trudeau projected a positive vision in his campaign, Harper was seen as a divider. In a nation regarded for its congeniality, Harper represented a nastiness in Canadian politics, something highlighted by his anti-burqa stance. Though this may have helped him surge in popularity, many NDP-leaning voters may have switched as Trudeau’s chances rose.
A technical recession in September seemed to sum up Harper’s tenure: stagnating. After a decade in power, it was simply time to move on.
This was even evident among conservatives, with Conrad Black writing: “It was, until fairly recently, a good government, but it… has become frightening in its disregard for democratic institutions and the rights of the citizens to whom it must answer and is sworn to serve” while former Reform Party leader Preston Manning disagreed with Harper’s public rebuke of carbon pricing.
In the election, the Liberals won a majority of seats, winning 184 ridings, nearly double that of the ousted Conservatives. In what the Washington Post called “an incredible reversal of fortune for the two parties of the left”, the NDP crashed back to third with 44 seats.
The Liberals increase of 148 seats is the largest election-on-election leap in Canadian history.
On a 20% swing, all other parties in the Commons saw their popular vote share fall, while only the Quebec separatist Bloc Quebecois increased their seat count.
The Liberals did notably well in the populous and vote-rich Greater Toronto Area, while the Conservative Finance Minister and Immigration Minister were among those toppled in their respective ridings.
The Conservatives have never quite recovered as the Liberals have governed in the decade since. One can draw a similarity between the 2015 underdog upset win of the Liberal Party to their remarkable 2025 victory after achieving the mother of all political turnarounds.
Anthony Albanese
- YEAR: 2025
- COUNTRY: Australia
- PARTY: Labor Party
Talking of the 2025 Canadian election, Australia’s election days later bore a resemblance as the incumbent centre-left party, unpopular and trailing in the polls, would be re-elected with an increased seat count in a last-minute turnaround, fuelled by anti-Trump sentiment.
Moreover, the opposition leaders who appeared to be prime ministers-in-waiting just months earlier were both ejected by their own constituents from their parliamentary seats.
Although the year started with the Coalition (the right-wing alliance of the Liberal and National Party) strong, with one February YouGov poll putting them just short a majority, the presidency of Donald Trump, whose aggressive alteration of the world order through his tariff policy, alienated voters across the world.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s agenda was, in voter’s minds, linked to Trump’s, including his anti-woke crusade against Aboriginal flags, left-wing ‘indoctrination’ in schools, and liberal “hate media”.
A more obvious parallel was Dutton’s proposed government efficiency unit, similar to Elon Musk’s DOGE, which would include slashing up to 40,000 federal jobs and a ban on working from home, though the latter policy’s unpopularity led to a mid-campaign u-turn. The woman set to lead the department, Liberal Senator Jacinta Price, herself made a much-discussed campaign gaffe calling to “make Australia great again”, drawing further ties between Dutton and Trump.
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten called it “the worst campaign in living memory.”
Labor managed to galvanise a youthful base, with Albanese, or “Albo”, often seen with a Medicare card in his hand to hammer home his message of a Labor government protecting Australian’s healthcare.
On election day, it was misery for all parties, except the Labor Party. All others saw their vote share decrease.
The Labor Party increased their threadbare majority from 2022 into a titanic 94 seats in the 150-seat House. This marked the most seats ever obtained by a single party.
Albo became the first Labour PM re-elected since 1990, the first term PM to be re-elected with a swing in post-war Australia, and the first Labor PM to be re-elected with an increased majority since Federation.
Though the Greens lost three of its four seats, including that of its leader, the Coalition had it the worst by far.
They lost across the major cities, being wiped off the map in Adelaide and Tasmania while losing seats in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney. In Queensland, Dutton made history as the first Opposition leader to ever lose his seat when ousted from the Dickson seat he first won two decades earlier.
GRIFFIN KAYE.