Election 2021: Jackie Baillie won despite being outspent by SNP

The SNP spent 57 per cent more overall than Labour to win the Scottish Parliament constituency in May.

That included more than 207,000 SNP leaflet inserts, survey cards, newsletters and letters for the party’s candidate Toni Giugliano, compared to nearly 120,000 for Labour’s Jackie Baillie – that’s 73 per cent more printed material.

The difference between spending on social media advertising was even more stark – while the Labour campaign spent £991.03 on adverts on Facebook, the SNP spent £4,387.80 on near-daily Facebook ads, starting in January and running until polling day on May 6 – 342 per cent more than Labour, and also more than all the other candidates combined.

But despite the SNP’s efforts, Ms Baillie, who has represented Helensburgh and Lomond as the Dumbarton constituency MSP since the parliament was established in 1999, was returned to Holyrood with an increased majority.

Ms Baillie saw her vote share go up by 6.1 per cent to 17,825, while the SNP’s vote increased by 2.6 per cent to 16,342.

The Tories, who spent £11,943.32 on their candidate, Helensburgh resident Maurice Corry, saw their share of the vote fall 6.3 per cent to 3,205 votes.

Scottish Libertarian Party candidate Jonathan Rainey spent £332.70, the least in the campaign.

Dumbarton constituency feature ahead of the the Scottish parliament election on May 6th. Pictured is Toni Giugliano (with his dog Harris) in Dumbarton. Toni is the SNP candidate for the Dumbarton Scottish Parliament constituency. .. Photograph by Colin

More than £12,000 in permissible donations were made to Ms Baillie’s campaign, largely from the Dumbarton branch of the party. By contrast, the £3,300 in listed donations to Mr Giugliano came from 17 Individuals offering amounts from £60 to £500 and from across Dumbarton and the Vale as well as Milngavie, Helensburgh, Rutherglen and Edinburgh.

Dumbarton was one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds in the country, but it was also expensive. In total, seven candidates spent a total of £69,074.09 – which, with an electorate of more than 55,000 people, represents significantly more than £1 per voter.

In the neighbouring Clydebank and Milngavie seat, the five candidates spent a total of £50,379.38.

Individual spending doesn’t reflect free social media posts or any national media attention or outside groups backing particular candidates or tactical voting.

After their defeat, the SNP said Ms Baillie won because of tactical voting by Conservative supporters living in the Helensburgh and Lomond area.

Mr Giugliano told the Advertiser: “I’m hugely proud of my campaign which, in just four months, secured the highest SNP share of the vote ever recorded in the Dumbarton constituency – that’s almost 3,000 more votes than 2016.

“I’m also proud that my campaign efforts secured a commitment in the SNP manifesto to refurbish the Vale of Leven Hospital - and I hope this commitment is delivered promptly.

“The campaign strategy was designed to get the SNP vote out on the day – and we did that. But there are some things in politics that you can’t control – such as the Tories effectively standing aside to give Labour a free run.

“On election night I was knocking up voters in Brucehill and Castlehill who voted SNP in their droves – while my Labour opponent spent her time at Victoria Halls in Helensburgh courting the Tory vote. That tells its own story.

“The bigger question is who funded the ‘vote tactically’ propaganda on lampposts, roundabouts and social media? How much was spent locally and what can be done to limit non-party election spending in the future?”

Jackie Baillie was re-elected as Labour MSP with the highest number of votes in her six elections

Mr Giugliano’s campaign manager, Helensburgh and Lomond South councillor Richard Trail, said: “Toni fought a good campaign in a very unusual election. He had an uphill battle to raise his profile when for much of the campaign he could not engage with voters personally.

“The Labour candidate was successful in wooing large numbers of Tory voters to her cause which tipped the result her way.”

Ms Baillie said: “I won my seat, with an increased majority, because I didn’t take a single vote for granted.

“My team and I pounded the streets day in and day out and hit the telephones in order to have meaningful, one-on-one conversations with voters in every part of our community.

“I listened to what they wanted – and what they told me was that they wanted to prioritise a recovery over another referendum, they wanted an alternative to 14 years of the SNP and they wanted someone who was local and would fight their corner.

“The Scottish Labour Party hired a west of Scotland regional campaign organiser who I was lucky enough to have join me on the campaign trail for part of their time. Their job was to mobilise and support volunteers who were a huge part of the campaign.

“I know that the way that we campaign today could not be more different from the way I campaigned when I first won my seat back in 1999.

“But I still strongly believe in the power of face-to-face conversations. Voters want to know who they are voting for.

“Social media has been really effective in getting a message across, especially during the pandemic, but it is no substitute for the personal touch. That’s why I spent my time and money knocking thousands of doors, delivering leaflets and writing letters to voters to help connect with them on a far more personal level.

“I am incredibly proud of the campaign that I ran. Representing my community is the honour of my life and I am forever grateful to the voters of Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven, and Helensburgh and Lomond for re-electing me.”

All candidates have legal limits set by the Electoral Commission and must file expenses in the weeks following the vote.

A “long campaign” begins on January 6 and runs until the day a person becomes a candidate. The “short campaign” starts the next day and ends on polling day, May 6.

The limits this year were £21,500 plus 6.3p per elector for the long campaign, £8,700 plus 9p per elector on the short campaign.

The number of potential voters can be a provisional number in March before a final one, causing differences in the calculated potential limit of spending.

But this year, across seven candidates for Dumbarton, there were six different upper limits. One, independent candidate James Morrison, didn’t submit an upper limit at all.