Dark Horse Victory

A Dark Horse Victory involves a third competitor winning in a competition with two major rivals. In many cases:
 * it involves a show's two perennial rivals,
 * it happens because the two rivals were only trying to beat each other, without noticing that there were others competing as well
 * it might actually be the work of a judge with veto power, and
 * the result leads the rivals to put their rivalry into some sort of perspective. (Or it prompts the designated good guy to be all, "Hey, at least the other guy didn't win.")

A common manifestation of this trope involves the protagonist of the story as the judge in a contest, forced to choose between two people, each of whom is extremely important to him (say, a love interest and a best friend or relative). He will often attempt to dodge the difficult decision by Taking A Third Option and ignoring both choices in favor of someone totally different (who may or may not be actually deserving of the honor).

Often, though not always, the third competitor who wins the award is a throw away character completely out of the blue, who the audience may not have even known was in the competition until the end or, in fact, may have never seen before (or since). And even if they were seen, their performance may have been inferior to either of the rivals, even after you factor in their rivalry.

Obviously, this is Truth in Television.

Advertisements

 * A variation is used in commercials, when a perennial also-ran in the market wants to raise its profile in the mind of the consumer. The commercial presents a story in which the top two brands are fighting it out, but the third brand pulls a surprise win. Rarely does this actually pull the company in question into the top two, but it can get it recognized as the underdog.
 * 7up did this, with Coke and Pepsi trucks drag racing and being overtaken by the 7up truck.
 * Snapple took this a step further by designing an entire ad campaign celebrating their status as the #3 beverage company in the U.S.--because "unlike #1 and 2, 3 knows not everyone likes the same thing"—never mind that the #1 (Coke) and #2 (Pepsi) companies also make more than one product.
 * DHL did a series in which UPS and FedEx drivers are in a race, but it's futile, because the DHL truck was ahead of them all the time.
 * A priceless Super Bowl Coke commercial where Macy Balloons of Stewie and Underdog are fighting (aka bumping into each other) in order to get that balloon of a coke bottle. Eventually, the bottle starts to float away, both characters turn and see a round shape on the horizon. It's CHARLIE BROWN, who then wins the prize.

Anime and Manga

 * In an episode of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, the Mermaid Princesses and Dark Lovers face off in a beauty contest, each side vaguely suspecting the other's identities. They all get beaten out by some random girl named Caren... who turns up again soon after, revealed to be not so random after all.
 * A Filler episode of Ranma ½ had a go-kart race with many different rivalries, but Nabiki and Kasumi won by driving conservatively while the other racers got into one of their typical fights and finally blew themselves off the road (literally). Another episode had Ranma-chan, Akane, Ukyo, Kodachi, Shampoo and Tsubasa enter a beauty contest organized by Nabiki for various reasons. The winner? Kasumi, who was acting as the assistant and not actually taking part in the contest.
 * Rune Soldier Louie Rune Soldier Louie has a filler episode where Louie and his mentor/rival Genie compete to see who can finish a race first. They spend so much time fighting that another rival's horse finishes first (.
 * Tenchi Universe has an episode where the girls enter a swimsuit competition, naturally with emphasis on the rivalry between Ayeka and Ryoko. wins with a last minute entry.
 * It became a semi-running joke in both Tenchi Muyo and Tenchi Universe to have Ayeka and Ryoko (and sometimes the other girls) competing fiercely to tend to a wounded Tenchi, only to be beaten to the punch by Sasami when they weren't looking.
 * Tenchi In Tokyo: the Third Option Love Interest got the first ever animated kiss or declaration of love from Tenchi.
 * The ending of the Yu Yu Hakusho series is like this. The three demon factions competing for supremacy are Raizen's (led by Yusuke), Yomi's, and Mukuro's.
 * Ookami-san has a beauty contest in which Otohime and Mimi are competing. Mimi places dead last with 0 votes and Otohime gets only 1 vote, while a character who won't be important until later wins.
 * Of course, this was all Exactly As Planned by the other members of the Otogi Bank. Otohime's one vote was from Urashima, the guy Otohime and Mimi were fighting over in the first place, to remind her what's really important. The character who actually won was a ringer thrown in by Otogi Bank.
 * In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the Miss Macross contest appears to be in the bag for famous actress Jamis Merin, with Roy Focker going as far as suggesting that the whole contest was just a publicity stunt for her (or else she'd have been a judge rather than a contestant). However, Minmay ends up winning, likely due to the fact that the audience is full of soldiers who frequent her restaurant.
 * The Ramen Eating Contest in Naruto is this essentially, Naruto is in third place. The winners are Yamato out eats Naruto by one bowl and Hinata wins after eating 46 bowls.
 * The Grand Prix racing episode in Kirby of the Stars. Instead of Kirby, Tiff and Tuff, or King Dedede winning the race, it was the Mayor who won who caught up being several laps behind.
 * Obligatory Neon Genesis Evangelion entry: By the time the Grand Finale has begun, the series has been revealed to be a battle between an Ancient Conspiracy called Seele and its less evil offshoot, Nerve. Both want to  However, due primarily to the head of Nerve's cruel treatment of his son, Shinji Ikari, and a startling number of Shinji's friends dying in horrible ways, Shinji himself ends up being the one to initiate Third Impact. And then, essentially, everybody dies. Hey, whoever said that a Darkhorse Victory was always funny or happy?
 * This is essentially how the protagonists' school advances to Nationals in Saki. The audience was expecting a titanic clash between Kazekoshi and Ryuumonbuchi, but a bunch of nobodies snatch the ticket.

Comic Books

 * The point of the name "Dark Horse Comics" is to invoke this trope's thought in buyers. It's not really working, and there's even some debate about how much of a "dark horse" the fourth-biggest comics company in the U.S. today is.
 * An issue of Archie Comics had Archie as one of the judges of a swimsuit competition. Both Betty and Veronica manipulate him into promising them his support in the contest. Moose also intimidates him into supporting his girlfriend, Midge. In the end a fourth girl wins. Betty, Veronica and Moose are all about to pound Archie, but he defuses the situation by showing them his clipboard, proving that he did his best to help them by giving them all an "A" grade. His skin seems saved until the girl who won comes by to thank him for tipping the scale in her favor with a grade of "A+ ". The story ends with Archie running for his life.
 * Another Archie story involves a track meet between several schools. Riverdale finishes second in every single event while two rival schools alternate beating them out for first. In the end, however, Riverdale, thanks to all its second place finishes, wins the meet on total points.
 * Because they don't want to choose between Reggie and Archie for a school election, Betty and Veronica try to throw Jughead in for the sake of a darkhorse. He does win, but refuses to accept the title because he didn't want to run in the first place.
 * In Udon Comics' Street Fighter, Karin tries to use a hot dog-eating contest to trick Sakura into fighting her with a full stomach. As the contest degenerates into an actual fight when Sakura's friends from Rival Schools step in, E. Honda ends the contest by choosing the winner to be Karin's butler Ishizaki, who happened to have eaten more than the both of them combined.
 * A variation from the G1 Marvel Transformers comics: in the wake of Optimus Prime's death (He comes back), the Autobots are debating who should become leader. Then, Trypticon attacks, and taking command of the situation to keep him at bay until he's called home for being too wasteful is someone the "council" wasn't even considering: the Dinobot commander, Grimlock. They unanimously vote him in. (This turns out to be a bad decision, because Simon Furman wasn't yet writing the comic.)
 * In a Real Life version of this, when Hasbro asked the fans to pick five Hall of Fame nominees, most fans predicted the five choices would be Soundwave, Shockwave, Grimlock, Jazz, and Rodimus. However, Rodimus didn't make it in... But Dinobot did. Then, nobody expected Dinobot to topple the others especially Soundwave but in the end... A character from Beast Wars beat four of the most famous TFs from G1.

Film

 * Steve McQueen's classic movie Le Mans features a double dose of this. McQueen crashes his original car halfway through the race and is out. Then he takes over his teammate's car, and still finishes second to an almost unnoticed third Porsche. The German villain finishes third. McQueen famously flicks a playful 'V' sign to the German guy after the finish.
 * The third Pirates of the Caribbean has a variant in-universe example: All of the pirates vote for themselves to become their leader—except for Jack (expecting this to happen), who votes for Elizabeth.
 * In Talladega Nights, the climactic race has hero Ricky Bobby and the antagonist Jean Girard competing so fiercely with each other that they ultimately get themselves disqualified. The winner of the race ends up being Ricky's best friend and perennial runner-up Cal Naughton, Jr—much to Ricky's pleasure, and he finally treats his old friend like an equal.
 * Dialed Up to Eleven in Not Another Teen Movie when prom rolls around. The camera (and viewer expectations) focus on the protagonist and the Rich Bitch cheerleader. When the Prom Queen is finally announced, it's a tie.
 * High School Musical 3 has a supposed battle between Troy and Sharpay for a Juilliard scholarship (although Troy's application was submitted behind his back). The actual scholarship goes to.
 * In Hairspray, rivals Amber von Tussle and Tracy Turnblad were both in the Miss Teen Hairspray contest. In the musical film version
 * Especiailly considering the fact that
 * In Surf's Up protagonist Cody is up against Jerk Jock Tank in the finals, with Chicken Joe on the side basically oblivious to the fact that he's even in the contest. Tank's constant efforts to take down Cody result in Joe winning, much to his surprise.
 * Which comes with a bit of a Zen Genius Bonus: surfing was created just as a way of enjoying yourself, to the point that trying to make a competition of it is Completely Missing the Point. So Joe, being too busy having fun to even notice there's a contest happening, in fact also wins in the very purest sense.
 * Smile concerns a beauty pageant, and while a number of the contestants are given a spotlight in the story, the actual winner is a character who wasn't featured at all. In fact, the girl given the most screentime doesn't even place.
 * The Best Man is an extremely realistic depiction of a political convention, where the nomination for the party's Presidential candidate will clearly go to either high-minded patrician candidate Henry Fonda or dirty-pool working-class candidate Cliff Robertson. In a last-minute plot twist, the nomination ends up going to a third candidate who went barely noticed earlier.
 * The documentary Murderball focuses on the rivalry between the USA and Canadian wheelchair rugby teams. At the 2004 Paralympic games,
 * A major plot in Stardust involves the princes trying to outdo each other at doing each other in to become king. The new king.

Literature

 * Davita's Harp: The yeshiva's top contenders for an overall academic award are Davita and a boy named Reuven Malter. It turns out that Davita deserves it, but the school won't recognize her because she's a girl and parents would stop sending their sons to the school. Reuven declines the award because he didn't really earn it, and it ends up going to some other male student, whose name we never hear.
 * Young adult fiction example: in Here She Is, Miss Teeny-Wonderful, the plot mostly focuses on the tomboyish protagonist's rivalry with a pair of obnoxious, underhanded twins for the title of Miss Teeny-Wonderful. Naturally, they lose, but so does the protagonist.  The title goes to a girl the audience hadn't even met before.
 * Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Liu Bei, Cao Cao and Sun Quan establish kingdoms and try to unify China. Eventual winner?
 * Only really works on the surface, though. Cao Cao's kids who were chosen to rule seem to have been incompetent in some way or other, angering Sima Yi. Yi was fiercely loyal to Caos Cao and Pi, however. And the popular and effective heroism of Liu Bei and his Tiger Generals overrode much of the military success of Wu in peoples' minds. (Wu was much more powerful and had far more experienced generals and warriors. Shu was the 'Perot' in the mix, a peasant/militia army like the Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War.)
 * In A Song of Ice and Fire, the Night's Watch election is won by someone who wasn't even running in the first round of voting because two major contenders give their support to him to prevent Smug Snake Janos Slynt from winning.
 * This also happens in The Wheel of Time, when is raised Amyrlin because the two main contestants fear the other might win. To most, she was supposed to be a puppet or a sacrificial lamb, but she turned out to be very good at her job.
 * One book in The Baby Sitters Club series had the various sitters and charges competing against each other to win a pageant. The prize went to a girl none of them knew, but who had been in pageants before and knew exactly what to do to win, in contrast to the charges, who were relying on their special talents.

Live Action Television

 * The Brady Bunch: Judge Greg picked a third girl instead of Marcia or his girlfriend in a cheerleading tryout. Marcia is very understanding and concedes that Greg made the right decision, but the girlfriend dumps him, leading Greg to conclude that she was only dating him so she could win the competition.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Homecoming": Buffy and Cordelia are competing viciously for the title of Homecoming Queen and are then forced to work together to defeat some demons/villains on the night of Homecoming. They've put their differences behind them by the end of the night, and it's announced that there's a tie for Homecoming Queen... but it's not between those two as one might expect, as it turns out that the two other girls competing, Holly and Michelle, have tied for the title.
 * In the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock,, wins the "Final Jam" competition over Tess and main protagonist Mitchie (though Mitchie  ).
 * Season one of Dawson's Creek has this with a beauty contest in which Joey and the Alpha Bitch compete.
 * On Welcome Freshmen, Erin Kelly is disgusted with the fact that a super-slick politician-in-training will likely become class president, with only disgusting slob Billy Cushman providing competition. She enters the race, but is immediately hit with so much negative campaigning that she eventually has no choice but to go negative in response. They both end up so damaged that Cushman wins.
 * Detention, "The Man with the Golden Brain": The smartest kids in detention (twin sisters, to boot) were disqualified from a Spelling Bee as one of them has butted into the other's turn.
 * Similar to the Buffy entry, in the Frasier episode "And the Whimper Is," Frasier fights for a Sea Bee award, but finds out that one of his three competitors is an esteemed talk show host, who is retiring and has never won the award. Frasier is momentarily thrilled to learn there is a tie, but of course, it is between the other two competitors.
 * The Golden Girls, episode "The Flu," sees Blanche, Dorothy and Rose fighting over which of the three of them will win the Volunteer of the Year award. Naturally, Sophia wins.
 * Greek, "The Popular Vote": It's Frannie vs. Casey for the Zeta Beta presidency, and they go positively Rovian on each other (though Casey takes the high road near the end). When the votes are counted, the winner is...Ashleigh, Casey's best friend.
 * In the Muppets Valentine Show, Kermit has to fight a giant rat for Miss Mousey's affection. And then she goes with another guy with the cool motorcycle.
 * The Office: Michael, Jim, and Karen are all competing for a job at corporate, which goes to
 * Similar split votes are common on Reality Shows.
 * In the Scrubs episode My Life In Four Cameras, each of the main characters is trying to win a talent competition to save a popular cafeteria worker's job...
 * Except it turns out
 * Seacht ended like this - after the characters spend the entire episode trying to win a music contract, complete with all sorts of blackmail and behind-the-scenes shaggery, the winner is somebody who had never appeared in the series before the last five minutes. Lampshaded when Brian asked who the f*** this was.
 * Small Wonder, "Little Miss Shopping Mall": Vicki and Harriet (perennial rivals again!) both lose to Ellen Sue Beasley, whose parents own the shopping mall and are judging the contest. And it's a Crack Defeat too, since Beasley was clearly outclassed by Vicki.
 * The Weird Al Show: Weird Al and perennial rival Uncle Bobby both lose the TV Host of the Year competition to senile, ukelele-playing puppet man Fred Huggins, another kids show host, which provides the Aesop for the story.
 * Played with in MASH. Father Mulcahy turned out to have some gambling skills, and he used it to anticipate a game of bridge, by betting on Potter's and Winchester's partners, not the guys themselves. Fortunately, he used the winnings for charitable work.
 * For pretty much the entire eighth season of American Idol, nearly everyone declared that the winner would be either Danny Gokey or Adam Lambert. In the end, Adam beat Danny, but both were beaten by Kris Allen.
 * In an episode of Seinfeld, George has a chance to score a terrific apartment, but learns that the tenant board wants to give it to an Andrea Doria survivor instead. George works laboriously to prove that his life has contained more suffering and hardship than that of the shipwreck survivor. He succeeds, as his tales of the mishaps he endured in previous episodes leave the tenant board in tears. In the end, however, Elaine's boyfriend gets the apartment by giving the super a fifty dollar bribe.
 * Remember WENN used the same twist as Buffy and Frasier (see above) in an episode where Jeff and Scott competed for the "Golden Lobe" award.
 * In an episode of Eureka, this happens when voting for town mayor. The competition is between Lucas (Zoe's boyfriend), Vincent (Town cafe owner), and a new character who's a weatherman. Guess who wins.
 * The "Final 3" on The Amazing Race tends to come down to two teams racing for the million dollars, while the third team has no chance at all of winning. In Season 16, those two teams were expected to be Fan Favorites Jet & Cord and Scrappies Brent & Caite, with brothers Dan & Jordan just along for the ride. The fanbase was legitimately shocked when Dan & Jordan ran a perfect final leg to pull out the victory.
 * Boardwalk Empire had Nucky go to the 1920 National Republican Convention in Chicago as par to the New Jersey delegation. He quickly realizes that the two front runners will deadlock and quickly makes a deal with Warren Harding's campaign manager to throw the New Jersey votes to Harding if the vote goes past the third ballot. Harding then wins the nomination on the tenth ballot and Nucky not only gets the support of the future President but also thwarts Senator Edge (who double crossed Nucky on a road fund bill) from becoming Vice President.
 * Episode 8 of Leonardo is about a painting contest organised by the Duke of Florence. It's presented as all about Leo and his rival Michelangelo. The winner is Leo's friend Tomaso.
 * In an episode of Lizzie McGuire, the main character and Claire go against each other in a school election. The winner ended up being the third candidate Tudgeman, who only won because he ate worms in exchange for votes (which he even acknowledges in his acceptance speech).
 * In The Red Green Show episode "The Folk Art Convention" from Season 15, the "Adventures" segment features an ATV race between Bill, Winston, and Dalton. Dalton is essentially driving a riding mower, while Bill and Winston have faster, more powerful vehicles. However, they drive recklessly and ultimately run out of fuel just short of the finish line, handing victory to Dalton.
 * In an episode of Gilligan's Island, the women of the island decide to have a beauty contest, with the men as judges. The Skipper supports Ginger, the Professor supports Mary-Ann, and Mr. Howell supports his wife, leaving Gilligan throwing the deciding vote. Gilligan declares that all three women are ineligible to win the contest, since they're not native to the island, and gives the prize to a monkey.

Music

 * The 1985 Grammy award for Album Of The Year was expected to be won by either Prince's Purple Rain and Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA. The two ended up splitting the rock-oriented voting bloc, allowing Lionel Ritchie's Can't Slow Down to take the award. (For the record, the other two nominees for that year were Tina Turner's Private Dancer and Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual.)
 * Some argued that the true winner of 1995's Battle Of Britpop between Blur and Oasis was actually Pulp.

Politics

 * In the 1998 the Minnesota Gubernatorial election was a tough race against controversial St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman and Attorney General Hubert “skip” Humphrey. However many people were shocked when Brooklyn Park Mayor and former wrestler Jessie Ventura won the Election and became Governor
 * Following the Liberal Party's defeat in the 2007 Australian election and John Howard's loss of his seat, Peter Costello was the favourite to take over the party leadership, with Malcolm Turnbull as a dark horse candidate. Costello announced he would not stand for leader, leaving Turnbull as the frontrunner. However, when the party voted on its new leader, Turnbull was defeated by Brendan Nelson.
 * A similar thing happened in Canada in 2006, where Stéphane Dion won the Liberal Party leadership instead of frontrunners Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff. In '08, the party suffered its worst election in years, which was mostly blamed on Dion (not entirely unfair) and he was replaced by Ignatieff a few months later.
 * Then, in 2011, Ignatieff delivered the Liberals an even worse defeat—the first one ever in which they dropped to third place. Rae became interim leader, and after Justin Trudeau (son of the late PM Pierre) dropped out of the race is the front-runner to become permanent leader. But the actual leadership election isn't until mid-2013, so you never know...
 * Those two Democrats (Stephen Douglas and John Breckinridge) whose rivalry cost their party the election and gave Abraham Lincoln the vote.
 * In 1912, the dominant Republican Party was split between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt (who ran as a third party candidate), paving the way for Woodrow Wilson's victory. It was one of the few times in American history that a "third party" finished second.
 * An almost perfect example of this happened in the 2004 Iowa Democratic Caucus: the analysts were certain that the race for the state was between Dick Gephardt (who won the caucuses in 1988) and Howard Dean (who had been leading in the polls in Iowa for months), and the pair got engaged in a vicious negative campaign for much of December. Come January and the caucuses, and two dark horses swept in: John Kerry won, and John Edwards came in second. Dean and Gephardt were turned into also-rans, and quickly eliminated from the field thereafter.
 * And in 1880, the Republican convention deadlocked between James Blaine and Ulysses S. Grant, leading to Blaine's nominator James Garfield being nominated, then elected President.
 * The more apt Abraham Lincoln example would be his strategy to get the Republican nomination in 1860 - the two favorites (William H. Seward and Salmon Chase) each had made too many enemies, as did the third-favorite candidate, Edward Bates. Among those who were determined to stop Seward, Lincoln was the alternative candidate that they could agree on.
 * And before, this, Lincoln was on the opposite side in the 1854 Illinois Senate race. Republicans and Democrats against the Kansas-Nebraska act had a slight majority, but a few such democrats voted for Norman Judd instead of Lincoln on the grounds that they wouldn't be re-elected if they supported a Republican candidate. To prevent the pro-Nebraska act democrat candidate from winning, Lincoln withdrew in favor of Judd, who was at least an anti-Nebraska democrat.
 * James K. Polk won Democratic nomination only after entering the ballot six votes in after a deadlock between several famous candidates.
 * The third-party candidacy of Ross Perot in 1992 is considered a major factor in costing George H. W. Bush the election, as they split the conservative votes.
 * This was also a very real threat during the 2008 elections, with Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters threatening to defect to McCain should Barack Obama take the nomination (and in fact, some did, apparently having no idea that there exists other parties besides Republican and Democrat in America).
 * McCain himself was a Dark Horse Victory on the Republican side, with the front-runners originally being Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
 * Which was itself a case of this trope, as McCain and Giuliani had been the initial frontrunners... only for McCain to stumble badly and Romney (and a host of others) to come swooping in.
 * In 2009, the Democratic Primary for governor of Virginia had Terry McAuliffe, former DNC chairman and Clinton supporter, and Brian Moran, a Virginia politician. This was a classic matchup between the more liberal Northern Virginians and the more conservative Southern Virginians...and then the party was crashed when Creigh Deeds, a candidate that drove himself to rallies and fundraisers, won the nomination in a walk.
 * In the latter months of 2009, it was very common to see stickers reading "Coakley" or "Capuano," the Democratic frontrunners by far, in Massachusetts leading up to the special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy. Both of them poured all their resources into fighting each other, both fully expecting that, like most Massachusetts elections, the general election would be an 80/20 formality. Coakley, especially, showed downright offense at the notion that she should lower herself to campaign against a Republican, and maintained a campaign of passive derision until the last week. Of course, said Republican, Scott Brown, won the seat 52-47. A major influence in this was an ongoing fight in the Senate over what is now known as "Obamacare" which only Brown opposed and made his opposition a major campaign point and source of nation wide donations (the bill would go on to pass anyways and become a major issue in the 2016 elections.).
 * The 2010 British election debates were like this. Basically, there's Labour (then led by Gordon Brown) and the Conservatives (led by David Cameron) both hovering between 30% and 60% of the seats at any one time in the past hundred years, and the Liberal Democrats (led by Nick Clegg) holding all but around 30 of the remaining seats. So, obviously, they had to invite Clegg on as it was likely he could hold the balance of power in the next parliament. What wasn't expected was him to figuratively curb-stomp the other two in the first debate, and hold his ground against Cameron in the second debate, mostly because he's a damn good orator (being an atheist Europhile with an aversion to nukes should've destroyed him, especially his Europhilia, but he made it work by noting the eurosceptic parties in the European Parliament failed to support anti-paedophile legislation and efforts). And between the first and second debate, the Lib Dems jumped from clear third to joint first in the polls as well.
 * Hell, even after the election it essentially was a victory for the Lib Dems, despite not getting more seats than the 2005 election the Conservatives failed to get a majority, resulting in a hung parliament meaning that both Labour and the Tories tried to court the Lib Dems into forming a coalition government to gain an overall majority, since they essentially had the balance of power on their side. The Tories successfully agreed a deal with them and Nick Clegg was installed as the Deputy Prime Minister, although as entering into a coalition, especially as a junior partner, involves plenty of compromising and changing policy to accomodate the other party, LD support has dropped significantly and resulted in demonization as the other parties seek to squeeze disaffected LD voters to their side, having to rely on years to rebuild and banking on a good economy to recover position (reversing on tuition fees cost them huge support, but reversing on civil liberties to accomodate Labour would also have cost them huge support it is worth remembering).
 * In terms of defeats in certain seats, Lembit Opik (Lib Dem) and Peter Robinson (leader of the DUP, a Northern Irish unionist party) both losing their seats with massive swings count too.
 * Had Robinson (not just leader, but First Minister of Northern Ireland) had a smaller majority it would probably have been expected, since he'd recently been involved in a fairly major scandal and Belfast East was traditionally the Alliance Party's strongest constituency (the previous closest time they'd come to winning a seat at Westminster was there in '79, where Robinson won by less than a thousand votes, though he'd built up a large lead since then)
 * This is almost TRADITIONAL in Conservative Party leadership elections in the UK:
 * 1965: Reginald Maudling is widely expected to win, with Edward Heath as a dark horse and Enoch Powell as a complete outsider. However Maudling's poor record as Chancellor leaves Heath with a majority (though he fails to win due to the rather complicated rules) and both Maudling and Powell withdraw.
 * 1975: Heath is now flagging badly after losing both 1974 elections. However Maudling has retired,and Powell has rather hurt his chances by defecting to the UUP and telling people to vote Labour, leaving Keith Joseph as consensus candidate for the right and frontrunner, only to have to withdraw after a speech in favour of eugenics, while the main heavyweight on the left, Willie Whitelaw, has pledged loyalty to Heath. A woman on the right, Margaret Thatcher decide if no one else will run against Heath, she will. Nobody expects her to win, but they DO expect her to probably get enough votes to stop Heath winning, forcing him to withdraw in favour of Whitelaw (candidates were at this point allowed to enter and withdraw whenever they please, though if they withdrew they couldn't re-enter, until somebody won a majority with at least a 15% lead). She ends up winning a plurality, which together with several other candidates from the left standing as well as Whitelaw, is enough to let her win on the second ballot.
 * 1990: Thatcher's now flagging over the poll tax (or, as she prefers, Community Charge) and a damaging resignation speech from Deputy Prime Minister Geoffrey Howe, though she easily beat off a challenge from Anthony Meyer the year before, and is challenged by Michael Heseltine. Almost everyone expects the Prime Minister to win again and live to fight another day, but she doesn't quite get a 15% lead. She initially announces she will fight on, only to be persuade by the Cabinet, that, while they still support her, they don't think she can win, and she stands aside for John Major to take the lead over Heseltine and Douglas Hurd, who then both withdraw.
 * 1995: Rather odd this one. Major's now flagging, and when he resigns to force out his main challenger, Michael Portillo, everyone expects Portillo to win. But as it happens, Portillo realises this is a point where it's best to be in a strong position to be leader rather than actually leader, and doesn't stand, while Heseltine agrees to become Major's deputy instead, and Major comfortably beats John "vote for Redwood not the deadwood" Redwood.
 * 1997: Major stands down after a landslide defeat in the General Election. Michael Portillo would still have been the frontrunner to succeed him – except that at the election he surprisingly lost his seat, leaving Michael Howard the frontrunner, with the support of young up-and-comer William Hague in exchange for becoming his deputy. Only for Hague to go back on his word, and damaging criticism of Howard from Ann Widdecombe, which combine to leave him dead last on the first ballot and withdraw, leaving Hague to beat Ken Clarke.
 * 2001: Hague resigns after a very bad electoral performance, making him the first Tory leader not to become PM since Austen Chamberlain in the First World War, leaving a leadership election under new rules. Portillo, newly returned to Parliament, is immediately once again the frontrunner – only to be knocked out in the third ballot, leaving Clarke favourite to beat Iain Duncan Smith in the runoff in the party membership... only for the unheralded Duncan Smith to thrash him 61-39.
 * 2005: Having finally succeeded to the leadership unopposed in 2003 due to Duncan Smith's unpopularity among MPs, Michael Howard resigns after yet another poor electoral performance. With the Constitutional Treaty firmly off the agenda, perennially popular veteran Ken Clarke is once again the frontrunner – only to go out in the first round, leaving David Davies the favourite... only to be beaten in the members' ballot by previously unheralded young up-and-comer David Cameron.
 * Older Than Feudalism example: In 63BC, the Romans held an election for the highly prestigious post of Pontifex Maximus (essentially, the chief priest). Fashionable opinion during the campaign was that it boiled down to a contest between two very old, very influential ex-consuls, Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, both typical candidates for the job. However, the two were too keen on the position (which was for life) to pull out and let the other take it, and wound up splitting the conservative, patrician vote... allowing a very young and then-unknown senator to score a sensational example of this trope. Still, surely the largely ceremonial position couldn't lead to any major revolution in Roman life? Well, maybe if the young senator in question weren't a certain Gaius Julius Caesar...
 * Donald Trump, a businessman with no history of holding elected office, was accused of running for the 2016 Republican nomination for president as a publicity stunt, largely because he previously (briefly) ran in 2012 as a publicity stunt. Trump won out over 23 other candidates with far more history in elected office and higher campaign funding (Trump's primary campaign was largely self-funded). One major influence in this was getting the media to advertise his candidacy and policies (primarily his devotion to a border wall) for free, without being subject to equal time provisions or other campaigning regulations on account of them being "offensive" in their eyes.

Professional Wrestling

 * Professional Wrestling does this with Triple Threat matches when one of the three wrestlers in the match has not been involved in a running feud between the other two, or is otherwise pushed into the match with an intentional lack of build-up. A recent example: Randy Orton, a textbook heel and then-WWE Champion, went into Wrestlemania 24 defending his belt against John Cena and Triple H in a Triple Threat match. Triple Threats as championship matches are notorious for hamming up the defender losing a belt unfairly or without being 'properly' beaten, because one of the non-champions can win the belt by pinning the other non-champion. WWE even did a phone-poll for fan speculation on who would win the match, with Orton receiving an underwhelming five percent of the vote. Guess who won the match?
 * Dark Horse Victories are common enough in wrestling that WWE has begun successfully swerving the audience by letting the odds-on favorites win handily. The most visible example is WWE's recent years-long campaign to re-establish the #30 spot in the Royal Rumble as the odds-on favorite (since drawing #30 out of 30 had previously been, statistically, the worst chance to win the match) by having a streak of victories from the final entrants; meanwhile, Wade Barrett was built as such a foregone conclusion to win the first season of WWE's NXT show that his victory was a surprise.
 * Much to the joy of every internet Smart Mark alive, CM Punk held the WWE Championship, Daniel Bryan held the World Heavyweight Championship and Zack Ryder held the United States Championship simultaneously (at one point). All three (Punk and Bryan being indy circuit vets and Ryder being an internet darling (moreso than the other two)) were widely seen as "not championship material" by management. Following their victories after the 2011 TLC pay-per-view, all three joined together to defeat Dolph Ziggler, Alberto del Rio and The Miz in a tag-team match, and then celebrated with the crowd as the collective "People's Champions".
 * A subsequent promotional video, using the song "Dark Horses" by Switchfoot, was made in recognition of this time of events.

Sport

 * Real life example: Australian Steven Bradbury won a speed skating gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics after all the other competitors crashed. (And yet the Australian broadcaster, since it was Australia's first ever Winter Olympics gold medal (and first gold of any country in the Southern Hemisphere), still did those slow motion, glory replays.) In fact, "doing a Bradbury" has become Australian slang for this trope.
 * The 1992 Olympics provided the former Trope Namer in Robert Zmelik of Czechoslovakia, who won the decathlon...after American audiences had been treated to an ad campaign hyping Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson in the buildup to the games (Dan failed to qualify for those games but later won the gold in '96 and Dave took the bronze).
 * Perhaps the most amusing example of this was Tonya Harding versus Nancy Kerrigan in 1994, featuring the former allegedly sending a hit man on the latter, but in the end, she was a non-factor in the competition itself, and Kerrigan lost to Oksana Baiul, although wasn't completely out of the blue, as Baiul was the reigning World Champion going in.
 * The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City featured a number of firsts, the first Olympics in Latin America, a number of broken records for pole vault, long jump, triple jump, etc. But one thing that Mexicans are likely to remember is Felipe "el tibio" Muñoz Kapamas, the first, and so far, only Mexican athlete to ever win a gold medal in an Olympic swimming event. El Tibio, "The Timid One", got his nickname for his then-odd habit of refusing to swim in a nonheated pool and became famous for edging out both the Soviet and U.S. favorite and winning the 200m breaststroke.
 * The 2007 Formula One World Championship had the two McLaren drivers, double World Champion Fernando Alonso and hotshot rookie Lewis Hamilton locked in a bitter rivalry for the title crown. The Championship went all the way to the final race, with Hamilton leading and Alonso second favourite. However, Hamilton made a mistake and Alonso was unable to catch up with the Ferraris. At the end of the day, it was their Ferrari rival Kimi Räikkönen who won the race and the title. Alonso and Hamilton were tied for second.
 * 1986 had much of the same. Williams teammates double World Champion Nelson Piquet and English hero Nigel Mansell spew at each other all season, while Alain Prost comes from behind to take it, winning the season finale.
 * 2010 had a similar outcome. A change in the points system and no dominant driver ensured a wide open contest right to the end between no fewer than five drivers, including Alonso, Hamilton and Jenson Button who between them had won four of the past five titles. Coming to the final race, Fernando Alonso led from Australian Mark Webber, with Webber's teammate, German Sebastian Vettel third. Alonso had to come first or second to clinch the crown, whereas Webber needed to win with Alonso no higher than third, and a very much third-favourite Vettel needed to win and have Alonso come fifth or lower. In the event, Vettel won the race – and became champion when Alonso and Webber finished 7th and 8th. To make it even more this trope, despite the leadership of the drivers' championship changing many times over the course of the season, Vettel had not been leading it once all year until winning in the final race.
 * This trope got preemptively lampshaded by Vettel: when asked by a reporter if he thought he stood a chance of winning the title, Vettel noted that he was the first one to ask that, everyone else had just asked if he would help his teammate win the title away from Alonso.
 * Seems to happen often in racing themes; one inspiration could be the 1979 Daytona 500. Donnie Allison was leading Cale Yarborough in the last lap, Yarborough tried to pass, and they both wrecked, leaving down-by-half-a-lap Richard Petty to win. Yarborough and Allison ended up discussing the incident in the infield using eloquent punches to the face.
 * An example from the world of football: in the 1993 Polish championship, frontrunners Legia Warsaw and LKS Lodz were accused of match-fixing so the title was awarded to third-placed Lech Poznan.
 * The Euro '92 international football European Championships. Due to the eruption of Civil War in Yugoslavia causing the country, a notable footballing power, to be removed from the tournament after they had qualified but before it could start, a replacement nation had to be drafted in at the last minute to make up the numbers. Denmark, runners-up to the Yugoslavs in qualifying, took their slot. In an evenly-matched group stage they managed a goalless draw against England before losing to local rivals Sweden. In the crucial last group game the unfancied Danes went up against big guns France for what turned out to be a straight fight for second place (behind the Swedes) and a spot in the semi-finals, and sneaked through 2-1 after a late winner. Denmark then encountered defending champions the Netherlands in the semis, and shockingly overturned them in a 5-4 penalty shootout victory. This pitted them against Germany in the final; the Germans remain one of the sport's perennial powerhouses and were the incumbent world champions. Guess who won. There was even a dark horse scorer, as in amongst an assembly of world-class striking talent it was Danish defensive midfielder John Jensen who netted their first goal in a 2-0 triumph – a man who otherwise managed just 3 international goals in nearly 80 matches across eight years, and who subsequent to this final would be signed by English giants Arsenal, where in 130-odd games he would famously score only once.
 * In the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup the 4 pre-seeded teams were USA (two-times winner and perennial favorite), Germany (host team which had won the previous two cups - in 2007, without conceding a single goal), Brazil (runner-up in the last cup and two Olympics, and team of the best player in the world, Marta) and Japan. Guess which one of the four won?
 * Denmark in the European handball championships 2012. Coming to the tournament, expected to be one of the fours team in the semi finals, they lose two matches in the preliminary round, going to the main round with 0 points, effectively making themselves underdogs. Denmark won the three matches on the main round, and with some other results going the right way (Macedonia beating Poland, Sweden having a draw against Poland, Poland beating Germany), the Danes ended up with 6 points, one ahead of Germany, Poland and Macedonia (who started the main round with 4, 2 and 1 point respectively - 2 points for a win). In the semi-final, the team that had played the best handball during the tournament were waiting, but Denmark had a one goal victory against Spain to go through to the final. In the final, home team Serbia were beaten.

Theater

 * In Gore Vidal's play (and subsequent film) The Best Man, a bitterly contested fight for a party's Presidential nomination ends when one of the candidates withdraws and throws his support behind a previously-uncompetitive third man.
 * One of the shows in the late, great Adventurer's Club, the Balderdash Cup competition, involved a 'rivalry' between one character (Otis T. Wren) and another member (Hathaway Brown), who Wren sends on a Snipe Hunt before the competition. Both of them, however, almost always lose to a third contestant, on his "first night".
 * Each of the other two have won at least once, though, as the contest is judged by the audience. While it's generally understood that the audience is supposed to vote for Bleehall, a group of guests colluded and threw the contest for Brown. And, on the very last night the club was open, Otis T. Wren finally won.

Video Games

 * The Nintendo Wii. Before the 7th Console Generation truly began, it was widely believed that the PlayStation 3 and X-box 360 would sell far better than the Wii, and that the Wii would be dead last in sales. Needless to say that didn't happen. To be fair though, after the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube (for both of which, their biggest accomplishment was doing better than Sega at the time) expectations were understandably low. But now for once Nintendo is strongly in 1st place while Sony is dead last. Of course whether or not this should have happened is often a source of debate. The only downside to this surprise victory is that its one of the biggest reasons why other companies are slow to adapt to the Wii's success. (On the other hand, the success of the Nintendo DS is less surprising, since all the way back to 1989 Nintendo has been a lot more consistently successful in handhelds, but that's a different story.)
 * It is worth noting that the Wii's success is largely attributed to the fact its release price was about half the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. This information was not known when people were predicting low sales.
 * Even after the prices were announced many analysts still constantly predicted the "Wii Bubble" to burst any day, usually anytime the other consoles got a price cut. Micheal Pachter still thinks Nintendo is crazy for not adopting his "Wii HD" suggestion.
 * Made even more hilarious when Nintendo announced the Wii U at E3 2011, which is basically a Wii HD.
 * In Fallout: New Vegas, three factions are fighting over Hoover Dam and the city of New Vegas: Caesar's Legion, an army of raping slavers, Mr.House, a brilliant former businessman with his own robot army, and the New California Republic, a strong, rich, democratic republic from the west. The main plot of the game is deciding who wins by helping them take bases, screwing up their enemies intelligence, annihilating minor factions who are allied against them, etc. However, instead of helping any of the above, you can assassinate Mr.House and take control of his robot army. You can then use that robot army to defeat both the New California Republic and the Legion at Hoover Dam (after optionally dealing with the various raider groups and Legion bases around the Mojave) and take control of Vegas for yourself. It's not statistically the best ending (it ends with at least two "bad" ending slides and several neutral ones, as opposed to the NCR ending where all "good" endings are possible for everyone).
 * Depending on the player's actions, the downloadable content Dead Money can feature a significantly darker version of this trope.
 * A common phenomenon in many strategy games (particularly of the 4X type) which involve multiple competing sides and a Tech Tree. What happens is that while the more active players expand and compete with each other militarily, a less aggressive faction is able to sit back in their corner of the map and climb the Tech Tree undisturbed. This eventually gives them an unstoppable advantage over the apparently superior competitors when they do join in the fray (see Conflict Killer). Occurs less often in multiplayer games, as humans know to team up and gank the techer early on.
 * In Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, after the final battle, the Lord has united the continent, both holding control of The Kingdom of Zenobia and The Empire of Zeteginea. In most of the endings, either Tristan, the heir to the throne of Zenobia, takes the throne, or he abdicates it in favor of the Lord, but in one ending,
 * In 2011, EA Sports and ESPN hosted a tournament to see which NFL player would grace the Madden 2012 cover. The best player from each team was chosen for the bracket, and the fans voted each round. Such big names as Aaron Rodgers, Adrian Peterson, Hines Ward, and Drew Brees fell by the wayside. In the finals, the controversial Michael Vick made the finals, but he lost to...Peyton Hillis of the Cleveland Browns. Making him only the second Madden cover boy from a team that didn't make the playoffs the previous year. (The first? Vince Young, who had just won Rookie of the Year the previous year.) To be fair, many fans admitted to voting for the player they didn't like, so that their guy didn't fall under the Madden Curse.
 * The winner of GameFAQs' Character Battle 6 in 2007 was not Link, who had won almost every contest he took part in, nor was it Cloud, who was the only to ever topple Link. It wasn't even someone like Mario, Sonic, Snake, or Master Chief. No, the winner of the contest on that year, who was able to topple every character to be thrown at it was... an L-Block. From Tetris. By tens of thousands of votes. By the time it reached the third round, the inherent hilarity of a Joke Entry becoming the most popular character ever was simply too strong to resist for the voters.
 * This caused the site to hold a quick small character battle directly after L-Block won by pitting it against other similar video game objects and it lost to the ? Block.
 * Very nearly happened in the Gamespot poll as well with Bub&Bob from Bubble Bobble, even spawning multitudes of fanwork for each victory accomplished.
 * Though it still happened in the Gamespot contest with the victory of Gordon Freeman, and later again in the Greatest Sidekick contest where Launchpad McQuack triumphed over Albert Einstein in the final vote.
 * At one point during Might and Magic VII, your actions as Lords of Harmondale lead to another war over Harmondale between Tularea and Erathia. There are two variations for how a victory is achieved (bloody war or negotiated compromise following skirmishes), but at first it might seem as if those are the only two contenders. Take the right actions, however, and a third victor is possible:.

Webcomics

 * The webcomic Girls with Slingshots did this in a blogging contest between two characters:
 * Dark Horse Defeat in Shortpacked: Galasso warns everyone that someone will be laid off at the end of the holiday season. Ethan desperately tries to make sure it is the new guy they all hate, Faz, who goes, or at least not himself. At the end of the arc, Galasso announces that the employee to be fired... is a girl who has not once appeared on camera, spoken a line of dialogue or been named or referred to until this point, with vicious lampshading. This leads into Robin getting mad at the cop-out and trying to increase the comic's drama.
 * This character, "Sydney Yus," does return later as part of the forces Faz has assembled to lead his coup against Galasso.
 * This is also a gigantic parody of Tonight Someone Dies.
 * In Kevin and Kell, Frank Mangle challenged the Herd Thinners C.E.O. R.L. for control of Herd Thinners. By the rules, the last man standing would be the C.E.O.
 * This was the protagonists' first true victory in Dubious Company. Izor sends the Imperial Guard to quash a rebelling town. The Guard puts down the rebellion in an overly nonsensical manner. The pirates later come in and take the Guard prisoner and sack the town. Given that the Imperial Guard has always curb-stomped the pirates before, this was a bit of a surprise.
 * In Survivor Fan Characters, this happened in Seasons 5 and 9.
 * Season 5: The final 3 is Gatemaster, Melinda, and Marius. Gatemaster hadn't done much intentional strategy, but he had somehow managed to control almost the entire season anyway and was extremely likable (if weird) too. Melinda was more overtly strategic and had managed to take the leadership position in her tribe without getting a single vote cast against her. Marius, on the other hand, had angered almost all of his tribemates and gone out of his way to piss off at least two of the jurors. However, Gatemaster and Melinda ended up splitting the votes enough for Marius to eke out a win with votes from the tribemates he had remained friendly to and explained his strategy to.
 * Season 9: Virtually everyone expected Sanza to be the winner to such an extent that they didn't even entertain the possibility that someone else could win, barring maybe his alliance member Kathy. That little robot guy named Cherman who spectacularly fails every single challenge and is a target at every single tribal council he's been to for being so weak and useless? Nah, he doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning, as Adorkable as he is. Then Sanza is eliminated in 5th place, and Cherman makes good use of his recorder against the villain to win in a landslide. SWSU, you magnificent troll.

Web Original

 * Survival of the Fittest 's version 3 endgame (Spoilered for massive spoilers)
 * In the (written, but not released) Homestar Runner cartoon "Soap Box Doiby", Homestar and Pom Pom compete viciously for first place. Marzipan, who isn't even revealed to be taking place in the race until the last second, ends up winning. (Homestar's usual rival, Strong Bad, winds up getting last place, however.)

Western Animation

 * All Grown Up!, "Rats Race": Tommy vs. Angelica (despite being cousins, they, too, are perennial rivals) in a go-kart race... but the winner is Harold.
 * Angela Anaconda, Angela, Nanette and several other kids entered a bicicle race. The only kid who made it to the finish line was Josephine, who didn't crash into any other racer. Angela's best friend tried to comfort her with the fact Nanette also hasn't won. Angela said that it'd usually be enough consolation but she needed the money prize.
 * Baby Looney Tunes: Bugs and Lola are racing Daffy in a toy car race, with Sylvester and Taz seeming only to make up the numbers (those two have to pool together their parts to put together an entry, even)... until Daffy's car bumps Bugs and Lola's car off the course, leaving the other car (Sylvester and Taz's) the only one to finish and win.
 * In non-baby Looney Tunes, the classic Bugs Bunny short "Ballot Box Bunny" has Bugs and Yosemite Sam as rivals in a small town's mayoral election. Both are beaten out by a literal "dark horse", who becomes "Our New Mare".
 * The CatDog episode "Climb Every CatDog" features Cat participating in a mountain climbing contest against Cat's arch-enemy Mindy, who has beat him in every competition since elementary school. The winner gets the mountain named after them. In the end, Mindy is hit by a passing plane and CatDog finally reaches the summit of Mt. Dunlap. And he was only trying to return their coat!
 * Timmy Turner invoked this trope in Fairly Oddparents, sending Cosmo (or rather, his disembodied head) into a race with two villains, figuring they would cheat each other but ignore him.
 * In The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy Grim and Mandy face Billy and Irwin in a go kart race. They are both close up to the final lap, but are beat by a mystery racer in a red wagon, a previously unnamed character named Pudd'n.
 * Subverted in the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Room with a View". Several regulars compete for ownership of a room, but a friend who came out of nowhere named Peanut Butter ends up winning it....but only at the closing of the second act. The third act has the other competitors managing to get him to give up the room, and in the end, one of the regulars wins.
 * Kim Possible: It happens in two episodes that made their U.S. premiere in January 2004.
 * "Hidden Talent": Bonnie and Kim (perennial rivals, of course) both losing to Ron at a talent show (although it does serve Kim right, since instead of showing off her kung fu skills, she, er, sings generic pop.) Barkin proclaims, "Proving that quantity is indeed better than quality", suggesting that Ron wasn't really any good at his acts.
 * In the ultimate version of this trope, Ron technically wasn't even supposed to be competing: he was a "last minute entry" who joined up to stall for time so that Kim wouldn't be disqualified as a no-show.
 * The very next episode was "Return to Wannaweep": Cheer camp at the titular Wannaweep. Bonnie vs. Kim again, this time, for the Spirit Stick. Your winner: A guy in a shark suit named Sharkie from a rival school. The "rivalry in perspective" portion of this trope is subverted, however, as Bonnie says: "Cheer camp stinks." A bitter Kim agrees. Ron? Although he points out either of them could have won if they'd put their differences behind, he's forced into agreeing on their point. (Shades of Buffy's "Homecoming". Both also use Dude, Where's My Reward?.)
 * Don't forget "Exchange" where Kim and Monique compete for the same Japanese Bad Boy-type exchange student, who's seen macking on the Alpha Bitch, Bonnie, as he leaves for Japan instead.
 * After an episode-long simmering rivalry in "Chain of Command," Lightning Lad challenges Cosmic Boy (who has been absent the entire series until just now) for leadership of the Legion of Super Heroes, it's a quick-cut to the tallied votes, and Bouncing Boy wins instead, as the other plot of the episode was him learning to be a better more assertive Mission Control.
 * In Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown, Charlie and friends don't win the big river rafting race that forms the plot of the movie... but neither do the three bullies and their mean cat. The upset winner in this case is Snoopy's little yellow bird friend Woodstock. What's more, until right before the finish Snoopy was racing with Woodstock in a makeshift tire raft when the cat pops it with his claw. Woodstock crosses the finish line in a little handmade twig raft (made on the spot), which means technically, none of the FOUR groups (for much of the movie the boys and girls competed in separate groups) competing against each other for the entire race ultimately won.
 * Disney's Recess did this once: The A.V. Kid is leaving and uses a series of practical tests to find a successor. TJ and Vince are vying for the position. Initially fiercely competitive, they chose to set aside their differences during the final stage when their equipment malfunctions. They fix each other's projectors just before time runs out and are both successful. A.V. Kid commends them on their teamwork before handing the position to an obviously incompetent third candidate (who we've never seen before or ever see after, yet TJ and Vince apparently know him well), tangled up in the film, for his "independence" (Being a solitary job, the candidate had to prove that they could work without resorting to outside help).
 * This trope was averted in a later episode when Gretchen and Vince are running against each other for class president. Gretchen wins by one vote, which turns out to be cast by Vince after realizing that Gretchen actually had some good ideas and could make a difference, whereas he was treating it basically as a popularity contest.
 * Rocket Power: Local brat/recurring character Mackenzie Benders wins a sandcastle contest ahead of Underdog Sam and a Teen Genius by default because Mackenzie was the only one who built an actual sand castle.
 * The Simpsons did this with the aptly named Lisa's Rival, where Lisa replaces Allison Taylor's diorama of Edgar Allan Poe's The Telltale Heart with a bloody cow heart, but the guilt gets to her and she reveals Allison's real diorama (getting off the hook despite her feeble excuse), but Allison still doesn't win; Principal Skinner is unimpressed. Lisa does not think she deserves to win after trying to cheat, but she is still surprised when she does not win for a diorama of Oliver Twist. In the end Ralph Wiggum wins simply by putting Star Wars figures in a box. Lisa and Allison decide to be friends and even befriend Ralph despite his initial gloating ("I beat the smart kids! I beat the smart kids!")
 * Also not so 'befriend'. It was suggested that they want to prove him not-smart by showing him games Lisa couldn't beat (at least initially).
 * SpongeBob SquarePants, "The Great Snail Race": Patrick's snail Rocky wins a snail race (a rock!) ahead of perennial rival Squidward's pedigreed snail in love with SpongeBob's pet snail, Gary (who crashed into the wall).
 * Teachers Pet: Scott Leadready and Leonard Helperman both lose to some gross kid named Ian for class president. Actually, it's the usual ending for the requisite election episode on just about any show.
 * In Tiny Toon Adventures, Babs Bunny and Plucky Duck competed for who could end up in the greater number of photographs in the school yearbook. It turned out they both tied, but 'The Kid in the Orange Hat' was in the background of every picture either of them was in, winning easily. And that Kid turned out to be Buster Bunny in disguise trying to teach them a lesson; instead, they both proceed to rain violence down upon him.
 * An episode of the cartoon Spin-Off of Beetlejuice had the titular character disguised as "Betty Juice" compete against Claire Brewster for class president. Even after some literal mud-slinging, BOTH characters lose to some unknown classmate.
 * An episode of Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat involving a writing contest between the titular character and her main rival had this trope. After the entire episode was spent trying to see who would win, they both lost to an old guy...who had won the contest 49 years in a row prior to this one.
 * Bromwell High did this when the school had a contest for the students to do presentations on social tolerance. In spite of all her efforts, including a multi-cultural interview show and parachut stunts, Natella doesn't win. And Keisha, in spite of throwing a gypsy boxing match, doesn't win either. The prize is awarded to the giner-haired Kylie, who didn't compete at all.
 * Every Which Way But Lose, in the fourth season of American Dad: both Francine and "Carlotta Monterey" (Hayley) are beaten by "Emmy Lou Sugarbean" (Roger) in the baking competition at Langley County Fair.
 * Futurama: Zoidberg rigs the Oscars to ensure this will happen twice in a two-minute span: first by listing Calculon among the nominees, and then by announcing the winner, "instead of any of those guys," is his uncle.
 * Played with in the Talent Show episode of The Weekenders. Lor isn't competing against anyone in particular (thanks to Tish inexplicably not even qualifying for the competition), other than her own lack-of-confidence (and inability to remember that the lyrics to "Home on the Range" are NOT "where the deer and the cantaloupe play"). She gives a good performance, but loses to Bluke's "Incredible Flying Hams" act, which consists of him throwing ham in the air and running away, terrified.
 * The Avatar: The Last Airbender crack chibi-short ‘School Time Shipping’ ends this way. Basically the entire young male cast (minus Sokka) are trying to convince Katara to go to the school dance with them. Aang, Jet, Haru and Zuko all try their hardest- but Katara admits she’s already going with someone else. The Blue Spirit! Zuko says “I didn’t see that coming” which is fitting, since the Blue Spirit is his alter ego!
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic played with this trope during the Running of the Leaves in "Fall-Weather Friends". After a lot of trickery in an attempt to get ahead of each other, Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash finished at the same time . Then after they got over that shock,.
 * This actually occurred with a test. The question was, "Who was the longest-lived English Ruler?", allowing a choice of four British monarchs. The actual answer wasn't even on the test: Richard Cromwell, who died less than 4 months short of his 86th birthday, even though he ruled England for only nine months.

Real Life

 * The rifle that would become the M1 Carbine was designed by Winchester in a little over a month between the two rounds of testing in the Light Rifle Program having been absent for the first round (and the feedback included in it).
 * James K. Polk's election was the Trope Codifier. None of the proposed frontrunners for the Democrats had enough support, and since Polk was supported by most of the big names who didn't support the other options, he was pushed far ahead of them and selected as the "dark horse" victor.

Examples of the "Hey, at least the other guy didn't win" variation

 * Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, "Hiccy Burp", sees Bloo and another imaginary friend named Blake Superior have a showdown with hiccups and burps (and yes, it's gross as it sounds) in a pageant. After some armpit noise making friend wins, The Tag shows him hiccuping while expressing how glad he is that Blake lost.
 * This trope formed the basis of a Doonesbury storyline in the 1970s. A congressional race is going on between Ginny Slade, Lacey Davenport, and a corrupt incumbent. Ginny has the support of most of the cast, as well as a song written about her by rock star Jimmy Thudpucker. However, people are torn between her and Lacey, leaving the incumbent with the full support of his party and coming out ahead. In the end Ginny realizes that Lacey is really the more qualified candidate and withdraws from the race to support her rather than let the incumbent take the race. Lacey wins and serves in congress for many years in the strip.
 * Hey Arnold!, "Grand Prix": Arnold settles for second in a go-kart race, but is glad to beat Edmund and Wolfgang.
 * The film The Ringer makes "the other guy didn't win" a plot point.
 * Truth in Television: Yes, the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox in the 2008 ALCS, but the mere fact that they were both there means the New York Yankees finally missed the playoffs! Victory for Red Sox Nation! No, seriously.
 * More Truth in Television: The results of the 1912 election described above were exactly what Teddy Roosevelt wanted; he ran with the expectation of losing solely for the purpose of preventing Taft, whom he had grown to despise for not following the policies he had laid out, from being re-elected.
 * This essay on variations of the Kingmaker Scenario calls this "The Vendetta" - whatever the reason, Alice has adopted an attitude of "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure Bob doesn't win". Alice no longer cares about winning the game - she just wants revenge on Bob.
 * The Dodgers and the Giants ARE this trope. Over the course of a bitter, hundred-plus year rivalry, fans of both teams take nearly as much joy in playing spoiler for whichever one of the teams is in position to win the division or make the playoffs as they do winning for themselves. The Giants beat the Dodgers 2 out of 3 games to end the season and cost the Dodgers the NL West title in '91, only for the Dodgers to return the favor in '93. And both times, the eventual division winner were the Braves. And that's only one example out of many.