Labour’s Claire Ward has been elected the first mayor of the East Midlands, beating the Conservative Ben Bradley by more than 50,000 votes. Ward, a former Labour MP for Watford, said she was “humbled” to have been elected into the role, and that voters had not only endorsed her but also “a changed Labour party that can now confidently and with conviction say we are ready to lead”. “You came out and you grasped the opportunity to take the decision-making out of the hands of strangers in Whitehall, and bring them closer to home,” she told voters in her victory speech. Ward received 181,040 votes, compared with 129,332 for Bradley. The Green party came third with 50,666 votes, just ahead of Reform UK. A Labour source described the region as “the beating heart of the general election battleground”, suggesting the party’s comfortable win there is one of the biggest signs yet it could be on track for national victory. The region encompasses a number of bellwether areas, as well as many former “red wall” seats, including Bolsover and Bassetlaw. Bradley said it had been a “hard-fought contest” and he was “hugely disappointed in the result”. “We have massively outperformed the national expectations,” he said. “I am obviously hugely disappointed in the result on a personal level, having spent two and a half years trying to work to get us these powers and to get us this support and this investment for our region.” He had hoped his strong local connections and name recognition – as the MP for Mansfield and leader of Nottinghamshire county council – would help him buck the trend of declining Tory support. He previously said that, if elected, he would remain as an MP until the next general election to prevent a byelection so close to a national vote. In a reference to criticism over his juggling multiple political roles, he said it had been “a hugely challenging period as we tried to do lots of jobs, as has been pointed out on numerous occasions”. Labour declared the win hours before the results were announced on Friday afternoon, and tpolls had predicted the party was ahead. As votes were being counted, Bradley could be seen looking glum outside the venue and when asked by one reporter how he was feeling, he replied: “Meh.” Turnout for the vote was 27.6%, with some candidates complaining the new role had not been publicised enough. There were reports that some voters did not receive information booklets about the role until after the vote on Thursday. This was the first time voters had gone to the polls to vote for a mayor for the region, which encompasses Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but not Leicestershire. Ward said the new role would mean the East Midlands, which consistently receives the lowest amount of public spending per person, would “no longer be at the back of the queue, no longer missing out, and no longer second best to other areas”. Ward represented the constituency of Watford from 1997-2010, and served in the Blair and Brown governments as a whip and later a justice minister.