Labour’s support in Wales has fallen further according to latest polling
Leader of Plaid Cymru Rhun ap Iorwerth is on track to be Wales’ next First Minister, according to latest polling(Image: Matthew Horwood)
Plaid’s leader Rhun ap Iorwerth is on course to be First Minister, a major new YouGov poll in Wales has suggested. Plaid is on course to win the largest number of seats in the Senedd next May, according to the poll of 2,500 adults in Wales.
The data shows Labour is continuing to haemorrhage support and will be in a distant third place in a Welsh Parliament dominated by Plaid Cymru and Reform UK after the election in May next year, if the trends shown in the polling are repeated at the ballot box.
The Conservatives, Green Party and Lib Dems all look set to win a small number of seats in the new-look, expanded Senedd from May., according to analysis done by the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, which commissioned the poll.
It would be historic if those projections came true, as Labour has run the government in Wales in all the 26 years of devolution, and has an unbeaten record in decades of Westminster elections.
This poll gives the following headline figures for each of the party
- Plaid Cymru 33%
- Reform UK 30%
- Labour 10%
- Conservatives 10%
- Green 9%
- Lib Dem 6%
- Other 3%
And Cardiff University projects that it would give Plaid Cymru the largest number of seats
- Plaid Cymru 39 seats
- Reform UK 34 seats
- Labour 10 seats
- Conservatives 6 seats
- Green Party 4 seats
- Lib Dems 3 seats
The poll saw 2,500 adults in Wales quizzed online between November 28 and December 10.
It asked their voting intention in May’s Senedd election, an election where the voting system, constituencies and number of politicians to be elected will all change.
Academic Dr Jac Larner projects it would mean the new Senedd would look like this:
The poll shows yet further decline for Labour. The last YouGov/Cardiff University/Barn Cymru opinion poll put Labour in third with 14% of the vote, that has dropped further since September.
Reform UK’s support – at 30% – remains unchanged while Plaid’s has gone up in this poll compared to last September’s.
The experts say that Welsh voters aren’t switching from left to right or vice versa but Welsh-identifying progressive voters are consolidating behind Plaid Cymru (away from Labour).
British-identifying conservative voters are backing Reform UK, moving away from the Conservatives.
The growth of Reform UK is being seen across the UK but among Labour voters switching to Plaid, 40% cite “standing up for Wales” as their primary motivation – an issue Welsh Labour has traditionally owned.
The analysis by Dr Larner and James Griffiths, from University of Manchester, says: “To understand what’s happening requires recognising that Welsh electoral politics has long been organised around two distinct coalitional blocs, structured primarily by national identity.
“On one side sits a progressive/Welsh-identifying coalition comprising Labour, Plaid Cymru, and, more recently, the Greens.
“On the other, a conservative/British-identifying coalition of Conservatives and the various iterations of the UK Independence Party (UKIP, Brexit Party, Reform UK) as well as, previously, the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party.
“This structure has proven remarkably resilient, surviving even the 2016 EU referendum, which fundamentally restructured British politics around Brexit attitudes.
“The two dimensions—national identity and Brexit—now substantially overlap. British-identifying voters overwhelmingly support pro-Brexit right-of-centre parties; Welsh-identifying voters cluster around anti-Brexit left-of-centre alternatives. This alignment creates a robust structure: voters aren’t choosing between parties with different Brexit positions within their national identity group.
“They’re choosing between parties that share both their identity orientation and their Brexit/cultural attitudes.”
A Reform UK Wales spokesperson said: “It’s clear to everybody here in Wales that the next Senedd Election will be a two horse race between Reform and Plaid.
“With Plaid, Wales will get more of the same extreme policies that we’ve had from Plaid and Labour working in tandem in Cardiff Bay.”Meanwhile, Reform will be fighting to restore common sense to Welsh politics, and to deliver real change for our communities here in Wales.”