Star candidate
High-profile figure recruited by a political party for office
title: "Star candidate" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["political-terminology-in-canada", "elections-in-the-united-states", "political-terminology-in-the-united-kingdom", "elections", "elections-terminology", "celebrity"] description: "High-profile figure recruited by a political party for office" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_candidate" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary High-profile figure recruited by a political party for office ::
A star candidate () is a high-profile individual who is entering or re-entering elected politics. In Canada and the United Kingdom, the recruitment of a star candidate often includes a guaranteed nomination in a winnable seat.
Star candidates come from several different worlds:
- Notable figures from outside of politics. (Journalists, broadcasters, athletes, celebrities, business executives, etc.)
- Notable figures in public life who do not hold public office. (Leaders of advocacy groups, academics, diplomats, senior military or police officers, union executives, community organizers, etc.)
- Highly visible politicians from other levels of government (such as a mayor of a large city standing to represent said city in national parliament)
- Former politicians who are returning to politics.
- Spouses, children, siblings, or other family of deceased or retired politicians. (Members of a political family)
References
References
- Perez, Andrew. (2021-07-28). "The demise of the ‘star candidate’ in Canadian politics". [[iPolitics]].
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::