The Race in Wales

With less than a fortnight to go until the elections to the Welsh Parliament, the latest Welsh Political Barometer poll conducted by YouGov, for ITV-Cymru Wales and Cardiff University has today been published.

On the constituency vote, the results, with changes from March, put the parties on the following:  Labour: 35% (+3), Conservatives: 24% (-6), Plaid Cymru: 24% (+1), Reform UK: 4% (+1), Liberal Democrats: 3% (-2), Greens: 3% (+1), Abolish the Assembly: 3% (no change) and Others: 3% (+1).

For the regional list vote the results were as follows: Labour: 33% (+2), Plaid Cymru: 23% (+1), Conservatives: 22% (-6), Abolish the Assembly: 7% (no change), Greens: 5% (+2), Liberal Democrats: 4% (no change) and Others: 6% (+2).

According to the analysis by Professor Roger Awan-Scully at Cardiff University, such results would see the parties securing the following seats: Labour: 26 seats (24 constituency, 2 regional), Plaid Cymru: 17 seats (8 constituency, 9 regional), Conservatives: 14 seats (7 constituency, 7 regional), Abolish the Assembly: 2 seats (2 regional) and Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (1 constituency).

Professor Scully observes that: “Such a result would equal Labour’s worst-ever performance in a Senedd election (in 2007) and would also equal Plaid Cymru’s best-ever result (in 1999). But we should be very cautious about such projections. The final list seats in most regions come down to very small numbers of votes, and changes in party support that are well within the standard ‘margin of error’ could generate rather different figures.”

In contrast, Opinium also published polling from Wales for Sky News earlier this week.

On the constituency vote, the results were: Labour: 40%, Conservatives: 30%, Plaid Cymru: 19%, Liberal Democrats: 4% and Others: 7%.

On the regional list vote the results were: Labour: 38%, Conservatives: 27%, Plaid Cymru: 19%, Liberal Democrats: 4%; Greens: 5%; UKIP: 2% and Others: 5%.

According to Professor Scully, such results would see Labour much closer to getting a majority in the Welsh Parliament. The results would be:  Labour: 29 seats (25 constituency, 4 regional), Conservatives: 19 seats (8 constituency, 11 regional), Plaid Cymru: 10 seats (6 constituency, 4 regional), Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (1 constituency) and UKIP: 1 seat (1 regional).

Who to believe then? Professor Scully notes: “While Opinium are a deservedly respected polling agency, several factors (their lack of previous experience in conducting polls specifically in Wales; the excellent track record of YouGov’s polls in recent Welsh elections; the lack of sampling among 16 and 17 year olds; and the lack of inclusion of Abolish the Assembly as a regional list vote option) all lead me to suspect that this week’s Barometer poll is more likely to be closer to the true picture of party support at present. But we should certainly not ignore the Opinium findings. And the commonalities in findings between the two agencies (the size of the Labour lead; the level of support for the Liberal Democrats; regional list support for the Greens) should increase our confidence in those findings.”

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