Dr @jaclarner.bsky.social ar Sharp End neithiwr yn trafod pôl piniwn diweddaraf @YouGov / @itvcymruwales.bsky.social
Dr Jac Larner on ITV Sharp End last night discussing the latest Barn Cymru poll. Full programme link below 👇
#Senedd26 #Wales #Cymru
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
Barely 2 per cent of Britons belong to a political party. Yet this tiny, unrepresentative minority helps decide who gets selected to stand for Parliament, who gets to lead our parties and, ultimately, who gets to govern the country. So who are they? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Perfect if you want to know more about the upcoming Welsh election!
Graph showing the percentage of people who like a party who said that they did (in 2024) or would (in 2025) vote for that specific party. Greens convert the fewest people who strongly like them into voters, even in 2025 (when their vote share has increased).
Greens have particularly struggled to convert *liking* into *voting*.
Looking at GB-wide parties, the Greens were the least successful at turning people who strongly liked them into actual voters. Expect this has changed now!
Labour convert at a similar rate in 2025 v 2024- but fewer like them!
That's cool! Will be interesting to see if that's changed over the past year, as the Greens have become more viable.
Reform's trajectory suggests the answer is "probably" ?
The comments from Labour figures since Gorton and Denton suggest that they still don't see losses to the left as a risk (or don't want to admit it publicly). Doesn't bode well for them in the upcoming devolved/local elections...
No worries! I'll add it to the codebook too and reupload on Monday
Here you go! Sorry for the photo, it was too long to post here.
Could I ask which version are you using please? I just checked v30.1 (the most recent on our website) and they should be there. If not, I'll need to do some digging to check what's gone wrong.
In Wave 30 (May 2025), the variables are named "generalElectionRanked_1" to generalElectionRanked_12"
We also have generalElectionVote, which is regular vote intention!
Morning Ewan, I've just checked, and we have a ranked voting Q in Wave 30 if that helps you?
New piece from w/ @hannahbunting.bsky.social & @jess-smith.bsky.social on the Gorton & Denton byelection, and what it might tell us about British politics.
We cover turnout, late-deciding voters, gender gaps & the continuing fragmentation of the party system 🧵
theconversation.com/late-decider...
New post by me on how and why support for Labour has dropped since the general election, and how the Green by-election win yesterday increases the chances of a Reform majority at the next GE because tactical coordination failure on the left is now more likely.
electionsetc.com/2026/02/27/t...
Thanks Dan!
You can submit your proposal here!
www.britishelectionstudy.com/submit-your-...
We also have relative propensity to vote/like scores, which might help in the meantime?
Great to speak with @meganekenyon.bsky.social of @newstatesman1913.bsky.social on location about the result in Gorton and Denton, including the role of party blocs!
Clipped my bit below, but you can watch the whole video here (bonus, there is a cat!):
youtu.be/dUh_1XuAg-g?...
Here's a table in the new @britishelectionstudy.com book (forthcoming). We calculated 'second preferences' - here Labour voters after elections 2015 to 2024.
50% of Labour's 2024 voters had Greens as second preference. 42% the Lib Dems. The left bloc is coalescing behind the most viable left party!
🚨New article in @electoralstudies.bsky.social🚨
New method using open-text survey, parliament speech analysis & conjoint experiment to detect policies/issues where all of:
1) bottom-up public demand
2) elites are neglecting it
3) would motivate vote choice if party adopt it
tinyurl.com/44ryyybc
🧵
Good to see Labour politicians talking about blocs!
labourlist.org/2026/01/avoi...
If you want to know more, you can read our article introducing the idea in Britain here: academic.oup.com/pa/article/7...
Also Green and Miori's excellent work here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Reform are still toxic to many voters in 🏴. Too right-wing for most Labour voters, too British for most SNP voters
That leaves them just taking votes off Tories, who already get fewer votes in 🏴 than 🏴 or 🏴
Scotland isn't a "no-go" zone, but Reform's voters will mostly be from the British/Right
This graph from @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social et al's paper (free to read!) academic.oup.com/pa/article/7... - shows within bloc switching was higher than across bloc switching in 2015, 2017 and 2024:
🧵 Thread on new research on gender gaps in “don’t know” responses
Some of you will know that my stellar coauthors @hannahbunting.bsky.social @cerifowler.bsky.social @jess-smith.bsky.social @annasanders.bsky.social & I have been working on a large-scale project on “don’t know” responses in surveys.
For those interested, raw data download is here along with some basic cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...
Right let's breakdown this new poll for Wales because there is a lot going on below the headline figures.
[Thread]
In England, the Lib Dems and Greens are absolutely benefiting from the same trend.
The Lib Dems don't really have a big presence in Wales, but the Greens are also growing in Wales (to a lesser extent that Plaid, but more so among the fewer left/British people I think)
👇👇Upcoming Senedd elections look set to break the mould of Welsh party politics and rock UK Labour. To understand the ‘made in Wales’ and UK influences on this ‘within bloc’ realignment read @jaclarner.bsky.social & @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social 👇👇
blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal...
In short, Labour is on track for a historic loss, but this is happening because of movement *within* Wales's electoral blocs, not *between* them.
Labour's biggest losses are to Plaid Cymru, not Reform (who are growing from Tory losses).
Long way to go, but Labour are in a really tough place in 🏴
The most common reasons that Lab > Plaid switchers give for their switch concern the ability to stand up for Wales and beating Reform.
Labour’s strategy has alienated its core voters, and unlike at UK level it can’t rely on “stop Reform” messaging: many now see Plaid as the better option for that.
