Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen Re-elected
The Conservative party’s Ben Houchen has been re-elected as Mayor of the Tees Valley. Houchen received 81,930 votes, while Labour candidate Chis McEwan received 63,141, it was announced on Friday afternoon.
Election Results
In percentage terms, this puts Houchen on 54% and Labour on 41% — a significant narrowing of the last time the mayorality was contested in 2021.
Challenges Faced
There had been suggestions in the run-up to Thursday’s vote that Houchen was at risk of losing the mayorality to Labour, despite winning the last election with over 70 per cent of the vote. Defeat for the Tory mayor would have been seen as another major blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in what is shaping up to a very bruising set of local elections for the Conservatives.
The Conservative party saw its vote collapse in the Blackpool South by-election, where Labour’s Chris Webb became the northern seat’s new MP. Elsewhere, the Conservatives are set to lose hundreds of council seats across the country as results come in over the weekend, seemingly reflecting Labour’s large, double-digit leads in the opinion polls.
Re-election and Campaign Strategy
However, Houchen has managed to see off the challenge from McEwan, who is deputy leader of Darlington Council, to secure a third term in office as Tees Valley mayor. In the run-up to Thursday’s vote, Houchen had sought to distance his personal campaign from the national Conservative party, as Sunak struggles to repair the damaged brand of the latter in the eyes of the public.
In one social media post before polling day, Houchen said “I’m not dictated, whipped or told what to do by any party”, and stated Thursday’s mayoral election “isn’t about national politics or the nonsense that happens in Westminster”. Andy Street, the Tory mayor in the West Midlands, like Houchen has sought to divorce himself from the national Conservative party in his bid to be re-elected. The result of that contest is expected to be announced on Saturday afternoon.