On leaders, Rhun ap Iorwerth is favourite for First Minister in head to head comparisons, with caveat that a clear majority just aren't sure
Will be doing some more on next few days on attitudes to government formation and issues with @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social
Tactical voting likely to play a big role in driving vote choice (yes, you can tactically vote in this system)
Majority want to stop a Reform government and see Plaid as best placed to stop them, but progressive fragmentation remains Reform's route to being largest party (though not government)
Welsh polling remains very noisy
Reform has dropped off in other polling but steady here
29% would be Plaid's worst Senedd VI from YG since Nov 24 (sceptical of this given other trends both in Wales and UK)
Lab bounce driven by MiC polling, but some small hope for them
NEW ITV Wales YouGov MRP has Plaid and Reform neck and neck in Senedd vote intention
Impossible to say who would be largest party in terms of seats but neither would be close to majority
Would almost certainly result in Plaid led government as they have more potential allies in the Senedd 🧵👇
YouGov's first MRP of the 2026 Senedd election shows Plaid Cymru on course to be the largest party
PC: 43 (+19 from 2021*)
Ref: 30 (+30)
Lab: 12 (-32)
Grn: 10 (+10)
Con: 1 (-25)
LD: 0 (-2)
*notional results had the last election been conducted on the new system based on data from Dr Jac Larner
I don't think ITV published it yet. Seat projection is YouGov's own - they produced constituency level vote estimates and from there it's straightforward to calculate the seats. They did use by 2021 notional results as a baseline but otherwise I haven't been involved
Good question - a constituency poll overstated it but those are notoriously difficult to do. Reform probably outperformed their national polling but it was a FPTP race (encouraging two horse race) & attracted an unusual amount of media attention. Basically hard to take any real conclusions from it
Finally, there is some evidence now that Reform's rise in Wales is plateauing
With the full range of constituency estimates YouGov provides (including effective confidence intervals) a simulation of seat projections look something like this
New poll in Wales, this time with constituency level estimates from YouGov(🥳). Polling in Wales has been pretty noisy over the last 24 months with some big house effects, but the general vote intention trend is clear - May 2026 is a two-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform
This is great
This loss of talent will have long term consequences for our national research base. Government and funders should do something about it.
SES scoop out
@scotvoting.bsky.social
Fantastic stuff, as ever, from Nye on the decline of two cornerstones of Welsh identity over the last century: Rugby and the Labour Party
Ahead of #Senedd26 @jaclarner.bsky.social joined the BBC's Chris Mason in #Pontypridd to discuss the big shifts in Welsh politics that suggest a century of electoral dominance by the Labour Party is being challenged by Reform UK and Plaid Cymru, who are battling to top the polls in #Wales.
BJPolS abstract discussing the impact of political scandals on perceptions of leaders, focusing on the UK and Scotland. The study explores themes like containment and contrast in institutional reactions to such scandals.
From November 2025 -
Political Scandals and Vertical Contagion in Multilevel Systems - cup.org/47wHeJB
- @jaclarner.bsky.social, Robert Johns, @ailsahenderson.bsky.social, @frasmcm.bsky.social & @cjcarman.bsky.social
#OpenAccess
For those interested, raw data download is here along with some basic cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...
here's cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...
Raw data up by midday
here are basic cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...
raw data up by midday
Why consolidate within blocs? Labour→Plaid switchers: 40% say Plaid better "stands up for Wales", 30% tactical. Tory→Reform: 37% immigration, 25% protest. Different motivations, same pattern: consolidation not conversion.
Current polling shows the scale: Plaid & Reform both ~30%, Labour & Conservatives both ~10%. But crucially, the total size of each bloc hasn't really dramatically shifted. Few voters are crossing ideological divides - they've concluded different parties better represent their existing values.
The evidence: In 2021, Labour dominated Welsh-identifying progressives; Plaid held perhaps a quarter. Today those proportions have nearly inverted. Mirror image on the right: Conservatives commanded British-identifying voters in 2021; Reform has now absorbed most of that support.
New 🏴 data paints picture of consolidation within two blocs: a Welsh-identifying/progressive bloc (with Plaid as largest party) and a British-identifying/conservative bloc (with Reform as largest).
Adds to evidence that 2026 is shaping up to be 2-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK 🧵
There's not much political & social science can point to and say 'we know almost certainly that this will happen', but accommodating the far-right and subsequently losing is one of them.
NEWYDD - Adroddiad gan @robdjones.bsky.social yn dadansoddi'r data diweddaraf ar garchardai a charchariad yng Nghymru 👇
NEW - Report from Dr Robert Jones analyses the latest data on prisons and imprisonment in Wales 👇 #Wales #Cymru #Senedd26
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...
Paper is a collab effort w/ awesome @scotvoting.bsky.social team; @robjohns75.bsky.social @frasmcm.bsky.social @ailsahenderson.bsky.social & @cjcarman.bsky.social . Thanks also to UK and Scot Govs for providing high profile scandals while we were able to collect data
🚨 NEW in @bjpols.bsky.social : When Partygate hit Westminster, trust in Scottish politicians increased. Our experiments reveal a "contrast effect" - scandals at one level can make the other look better by comparison. Who lost most trust in Westminster? Scottish unionists. Read now #OpenAccess 👇
Almost a decade on, Wales' fiscal reforms deliver nearly £1 Billion windfall but fall short on empowering the Senedd
Major new report calls for tripling of borrowing powers and full income tax control as Fiscal Framework reforms deliver unprecedented budget boost:👇
www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/asset...
This is shockingly uninformed about how polling works
