Latest Senedd Polling

With two very different polls out this week, here’s a quick snapshot of where we are. These slides show the YouGov Barometer Poll over the last 18 months. The consistent polling, whilst not taking into account local factors, is certainly a good signal of trends. While the Labour vote softened in recent months, quite likely in response to the Vaccine Bounce seen across the UK for the Conservatives, Labour will be buoyed by momentum during the campaign.

With a focus on the pandemic, Mark Drakeford is still seen as a safe pair of hands, and neither Adam Price or Andrew RT Davies have been able to land significant blows. With the party platforms not entirely dissimilar, it might be that Mr Davies’ higher profile during the campaign is not helping the Conservative vote. That said, the Conservatives have yet to deploy their greatest vote winner during this campaign, Boris Johnson.

We should expect an imminent visit to shore up the shy Tory voters and drill down into their target seats across North Wales, and potentially Bridgend, Newport West, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan.

The other polling agencies have picked up an even stronger response for Labour, though few really expect Mark Drakeford to return to the Senedd without losing some seats.

The Vale of Clwyd and Wrexham are likely to be won by the Conservatives, and Clwyd South is in play. Labour are more confident of holding on to the Vale of Glamorgan, and are somewhat optimistically considering winning the Rhondda back from Plaid Cymru.

There is no doubt Plaid Cymru will pick up regional seats, and they will still be hoping to hold the Rhondda and take Llanelli, though it will be close.

When the latest Barometer poll is entered into our seat projector, it suggests Plaid Cymru will win Blaenau Gwent, but this is based on a good return there in 2016, and we don’t envisage this occurring again in 2021.

The Liberal Democrats will either scrape through in Brecon and Radnorshire or perhaps pick up a regional seat in Mid and West Wales.

There are still enough votes on the contrarian right for Abolish the Assembly to pick up a couple of regional seats. The different polling agencies use a variety of models and have picked up different returns for this suite of parties, so it is difficult to judge, and it might be that faced with a ballot showing three or four different parties in this space, none of them will do enough to pick up regional seats.

Ironically, Mark Drakeford will not want to be entering the last week of the campaign both ahead in the polls and with momentum. His messaging will be about getting the Labour vote out to stop the Tories, so it is always better to go in looking like you are working for every vote.

The Conservatives will be hoping that a bit of Boris magic dust in the final week might help galvanise those voters who would ordinarily not bother voting at all in a Senedd Election.