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]
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 at the time, and sold her home in
Mosman to move prior to 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.
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. Prior to his tenure in the
Parliament of Victoria, Mulino was a councillor and mayor for the
City of Casey. Mulino did not live in the electorate of Fraser until the
2019 Australian federal election, in which he was elected.
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. Prior to 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
PremierDaniel Andrews is a part) in Victoria.[10]
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 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 Australian 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]
In the
2008 Canadian federal election, in
Newfoundland and Labrador, the
New Democratic Party nominated Phyllis Artiss, who lived in
St. John's, for the northern riding of
Labrador. Artiss was nominated in the absence of any local candidate, and admitted that she found her candidacy to be 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] Artiss was not successful in her bid.
Former Prime Minister
Joe Clark, an
Albertan, was seen as a parachute candidate when he ran for election in the
Nova Scotia riding of
Kings—Hants at a by-election in 2000. Clark had been
elected leader of the
Progressive Conservatives for the second time and was seeking a seat in the House of Commons; incumbent Tory MP
Scott Brison had stepped aside for Clark.[25] He was elected, but in the
2000 federal election, he instead sought election in the Alberta riding of
Calgary Centre. He won in Calgary Centre, making it the only constituency to flip to the PCs.
Chrystia Freeland faced accusations of being a parachute candidate after the
Liberal Party nominated her for the safe seat of
Toronto Centre at a 2013 by-election (which its former interim leader
Bob Rae had represented), as she was born in rural northern Alberta and lived in New York City at the time. She ultimately won the seat.[26]
Kellie Leitch was accused of being a parachute candidate when she sought the
Conservative nomination in the
Ontario riding of
Simcoe—Grey in
2011. Leitch was born in
Winnipeg and worked in
Toronto at the time of her nomination.[27][28] Leitch won the seat over candidates including
Helena Guergis, the former Conservative Member of Parliament whom she defeated for the nomination and who ran as an independent.
In
2021, the Conservative Party nominated Lea Mollison for the riding of
Northwest Territories. Mollison was a resident of
Thunder Bay, Ontario, and reportedly never visited the
Northwest Territories.[29] Mollison's campaign ignored local media requests, including an invitation to a candidates' forum, which drew widespread criticism.[29][30]
Lester B. Pearson, who was born and raised in Toronto, served as MP for
Algoma East, in rural
Northwestern Ontario, during his parliamentary career, which lasted from 1948 to 1968. In his memoirs, Pearson admitted he did not have "any earlier connection" to the riding;[31] Pearson had been seeking entry into the House of Commons and the seat had been made vacant for him when Prime Minister
William Lyon Mackenzie King recommended that its sitting member,
Thomas Farquhar, be appointed to the
Senate.[32] Pearson nevertheless won election eight times before retiring from Parliament, culminating in his own premiership of five years.
Jagmeet Singh, former
Ontario MPP, faced accusations of being a parachute candidate when he stood for
a by-election in Burnaby South, a riding in
British Columbia. Singh had been
elected leader of the NDP over a year earlier but did not have a seat in the House of Commons, and stood in Burnaby South to gain one. Singh pledged to move to Burnaby if he won the by-election.[33] Singh was ultimately successful in his bid,[34] and was re-elected in the general elections of 2019 and 2021.
Sheila Nunan stood for the Labour Party 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 in the South constituency.[44][45]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."[46]
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. 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.[47][48] She was elected in the
national election.
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[update] 63% are local.[53]
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 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.[53]
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.[55][56] 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."[57]
Luciana Berger was a middle-class southerner whom Labour parachuted into one of its traditional heartland seats, in her case the north-western 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 a local radio station asked her basic questions about the
culture of Liverpool she could not answer them, and during the candidate selection process she stayed at the house of retiring local MP
Jane Kennedy rather than resettle permanently 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.[58] Despite her initial publicity gaffes, 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 in 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.[59][60]
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.
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 at the time, the former UKIP candidate accused him of carpetbagging.[61]
George Galloway was expelled from Labour in 2003 over
Iraq War-related controversies 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 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.[62] 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.[63] He lost Bradford West in 2015 to Labour's
Naz Shah, after a divisive campaign.[64] As an
independent, he unsuccessfully contested
Manchester Gorton in 2017 and
West Bromwich East in 2019.[65][66] 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.[67][68] Having formed the syncretic
Workers Party of Britain, Galloway returned to parliament by winning the
2024 Rochdale by-election in which there were a variety of problems with the major-party candidates and Galloway ran a campaign
critical of Israel over its role in the
Israel–Hamas war.[69][70][71][72]
Boris Johnson's selection for the ultra-safe Conservative seat of
Henley in 2001, after
the party's central office parachuted him in,[73] 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."[73]
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.[74]
Former
United States Attorney GeneralRobert 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. His opponents accused Kennedy of merely using the state as a convenient launching pad for the presidency.
^"Election 2014". The Sligo Champion – via Irish Newspaper Archives. She referred to Labour's Susan O'Keeffe having been "a parachute candidate" in the last general election.
^Lammy, David (5 May 2005). BBC Election 2005. Event occurs at 6:57:50. I think he's a carpetbagger who came down from Scotland to whip up racial tensions in Tower Hamlets.