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Leader of Plaid Cymru Rhun ap Iorwerth is on track to be Wales’ next First Minister, according to latest polling(Image: Matthew Horwood)<\/p>\nLabour’s support in Wales has fallen further according to latest pollingLeader of Plaid Cymru Rhun ap Iorwerth is on track to be Wales’ next First Minister, according to latest polling(Image: Matthew Horwood)<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The data shows Labour<\/a> is continuing to haemorrhage support and will be in a distant third place in a Welsh Parliament dominated by Plaid Cymru<\/a> and Reform UK after the election in May next year, if the trends shown in the polling are repeated at the ballot box.<\/p>\n The Conservatives, Green Party and Lib Dems<\/a> all look set to win a small number of seats in the new-look, expanded Senedd from May<\/a>., according to analysis done by the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University<\/a>, which commissioned the poll.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n This poll gives the following headline figures for each of the party<\/p>\n And Cardiff University projects that it would give Plaid Cymru the largest number of seats<\/p>\n The poll saw 2,500 adults in Wales quizzed online between November 28 and December 10.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Academic Dr Jac Larner projects it would mean the new Senedd would look like this:<\/p>\n The poll shows yet further decline for Labour. The last YouGov\/Cardiff<\/a> University\/Barn Cymru opinion poll put Labour in third with 14% of the vote, that has dropped further since September.<\/a><\/p>\n Reform UK\u2019s support \u2013 at 30% \u2013 remains unchanged while Plaid’s has gone up in this poll compared to last September’s.<\/p>\n 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).<\/p>\n British-identifying conservative voters are backing Reform UK, moving away from the Conservatives.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 an issue Welsh Labour has traditionally owned.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “On one side sits a progressive\/Welsh-identifying coalition comprising Labour, Plaid Cymru, and, more recently, the Greens.<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n “This structure has proven remarkably resilient, surviving even the 2016 EU referendum, which fundamentally restructured British politics around Brexit attitudes.<\/p>\n “The two dimensions\u2014national identity and Brexit\u2014now 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.<\/p>\n “They’re choosing between parties that share both their identity orientation and their Brexit\/cultural attitudes.”<\/p>\n A Reform UK Wales spokesperson said: \u201cIt\u2019s clear to everybody here in Wales that the next Senedd Election will be a two horse race between Reform and Plaid.<\/p>\n\n
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