We’re reporting from the count at Totnes Leisure Centre, where polls point towards Conservative hopeful Anthony Mangnall securing a win.There will be updates as the night unfolds.
Just moments after 10pm on Thursday, December 12, the exit poll predicted a landslide victory for The Conservative Party at 368 seats, and a crushing loss for Labour with 191.
Paired with predictions from the latest YouGov MRP poll which see him securing 51% of the votes, Totnes hopeful Anthony Mangnall is likely to become the constituency’s next MP.
If that does happen, the previous Conservative and now Liberal Democrat candidate, Sarah Wollaston, would lose her position after nine years.
If the pollsters are correct, Louise Webberly would be one of the Labour hopefuls losing out.
At 11.15pm, all ballot boxes were in and the flurried count was well under way.Nationally, the first of key Labour seats handed over to the Conservatives was Blyth Valley.Edging on 1am, Louise Webberly and John Kitson were the only candidates present as the verification process came to a close.There looked to be positivity in the Labour camp, shortly before a voter turnout of 74.97% was announced at just 1am, up from 73.07% on the last general election.Come 2am, Anthony Mangnall arrived appearing confident ahead of the announcement.Sarah Wollaston was the last of the candidates to arrive soon afterwards.At around 3.45am, it was announced that Anthony Mangnall was elected as MP, with 27,751 votes.Sarah Wollaston, who secured 15,027 votes, described serving as an MP in Totnes as “the honour of my life”, and thanked her supporters and family, before making a quick exit.Speaking afterwards, Mr Mangnall hammered home the South West’s capabilities, and said: “I will continue to make sure we’re engaging, and last week I took part in a hustings with the green candidate, and a lot of the stuff that the candidate has talked about are issues that I’m deeply concerned about, especially when it comes to climate change so I want to make sure that I am listening.“I’m here to make sure I am listening to all of my constituents’ needs, and to reassure those constituents who didn’t vote for me, they will see me out and about, they will have that access and opportunity to come and talk to me.”He said he was “enormously humbled”.During his acceptance speech he voiced respect for Dr Wollaston, and added that he will bring a new set of skills to the position.