
Dumfriesshire: Conservative Hold

Party | Candidates | Votes | % | Net percentage change in seats |
---|---|---|---|---|
Party
CON Scottish Conservatives |
Candidates Oliver Mundell | Votes 13,536 | 37.3% | Net percentage change in seats +7.6 |
Party
SNP Scottish National Party |
Candidates Joan McAlpine | Votes 12,306 | 33.9% | Net percentage change in seats +7.7 |
Party
LAB Scottish Labour |
Candidates Elaine Murray | Votes 9,151 | 25.2% | Net percentage change in seats −14.3 |
Party
LD Scottish Lib Dems |
Candidates Richard Brodie | Votes 1,267 | 3.5% | Net percentage change in seats −1.0 |
Change compared with 2011 |
The Conservatives take three of the four Scottish Parliament constituencies covering Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders.
Read moreScottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson wins the Edinburgh Central seat from the SNP.
Read moreConservative winner Oliver Mundell (middle) celebrates Dumfriesshire win with wife Catherine Mundell and father Donald Mundell, who admitted he "felt a little emotional" at the news.
Dumfries is a large, rural seat in the southwest of Scotland, north of the Solway Firth. Its economy is based on agriculture, tourism, textiles and forestry. There is also light engineering in the area, while the only heavy industry is boiler making, which is found on the outskirts of the town of Annan.
Tourists are attracted by the area's scenery, which includes the Lowther Hills and Eskdalemuir Forest, and also by the towns of Gretna, Dumfries, and Lochmaben, reputed to be Robert the Bruce's birthplace. Lockerbie, tragically made famous by the Pan-Am jet crash in 1988, is also in the seat. The area's farmers suffered heavy losses in the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic. Running through the heart of the constituency is Scotland's main motorway link with England, the A74(M).
In the Scottish Parliament's first election of 1999 the Labour Party's Elaine Murray won. She went on to retain the seat in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 Holyrood elections.