Conservatives say 'game on' at General Election after huge by-election victory over SNP in Girvan

dailyrecord.co.uk:

South Ayrshire’s Conservative’s welcomed their newest councillor in the wee hours of Friday morning after they took the Girvan and South Carrick seat vacated by former SNP council leader Peter Henderson.Newly elected councillor Alan Lamont had a massive lead from the first round of voting, where first preference votes saw him with almost double the votes of the SNP’s John McLaughlin.However, despite being around 75 votes short of reaching the magic ‘quota’, it would take the votes of those who had backed Labour to push the Conservative candidate over the line.As well as electing a new councillor, the by-election was seen as barometer for voting at the next General Election, with both Conservative and Labour teams proclaiming the increases in vote share.With the Westminster elections using the first past the post systems, the most useful statistic from last night’s by-election was the first preference votes.With the absence of independence candidates in a seat where they accounted for around 37 per cent of first preferences in 2022, the picture was made much clearer in terms of party support.The Conservatives took a significant step forward, with Alan Lamont gaining 1315 first preference votes, compared to the SNP’s John McLaughlin’s 778.Both were proportionally up on 2022, the Conservatives by 19.5 per cent and the SNP by 3.2 per cent, albeit on a lower turnout of 32.4 per cent.Labour remained behind both the Conservatives and SNP, but have taken positives with candidate Nicola Saxton’s increasing vote share with 499 first preference votes – where the party had only managed 358 on a higher turnout in 2022.The Liberal Democrats did not stand in 2022, but candidate Jamie Ross picked up 3.9 per cent of the first preferences