She lost her first two parliamentary elections

Thatcher came to the attention of the Conservative Party not long after graduating and was one of the first female presidents of the Oxford University Conservative Association. She ran for a seat in the House of Commons in the 1950 election as the youngest candidate, at the age of 24. Thatcher faced an uphill battle in the working-class area of Dartford, which leaned toward the opposition Labour Party, despite adopting the slogan "Vote Right to Keep What's Left." Despite losing, she received a lot of media coverage and acclaim for reducing the Labour majority by a third. She lost in Dartford once more in 1951, but after standing in the adamantly Conservative neighborhood of Finchley in north London in 1959, she eventually succeeded in winning a seat in Parliament.

She steadily advanced within the party, holding positions as parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (1961–1964), chief opposition spokesman on education (1969–1970), and secretary of state for education and science (1970–1974) under Edward Heath's Conservative administration.