In January 2020, Starmer announced his candidacy for Labour Leader in the 2020 election. On 4 April 2020, Starmer was elected as leader of the Labour Party, and as the Labour had the second most number of seats in the House of Commons, this made him the Leader of the Opposition. He was elected as leader of the Labour Party in the first round of voting using the single transferable vote (stv) method of voting. Starmer won with 275,780 votes (56.2%). He got 40,417 (53.13%) of the affiliates vote, 225,135 (56.07%) of the Labour Party members vote, and 10,228 (78.64%) of the registered supporters vote.