The defeat was a major rebuff of Salvini and his nationalist League, which had hoped to score a historic upset and force snap elections in the regional vote in Emilia-Romagna, but a high turnout favoured the incumbent centre-left candidate.
The Democratic Party’s (PD) Stefano Bonaccini won 51.36 per cent of the vote against the League candidate Lucia Borgonzoni’s 43.68 per cent, according to official results released by the interior ministry on Monday.
The League’s defeat now makes it harder for the party to win other key upcoming regional elections, such as Tuscany and Puglia, where it hopes to sway voters to the right.
The wealthy centre-north region of Emilia Romagna has been a bastion of the Italian left for over 70 years, but while left-wing values still hold sway in its cities, the right had rallied serious support in towns and the countryside.
Pre-election polls showed the League neck-and-neck with the PD, which governs Italy in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).
Turnout in the key region was almost double at around 67 per cent compared with 37 per cent in 2014, potentially thanks to the support of the anti-populist youth-driven Sardines movement.
In the smaller southern region of Calabria, the candidate of former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), Jole Santelli, won with 55.71 per cent of the vote.
