Sensational poll puts Plaid Cymru just one point behind Labour in Wales

Martin Shipton

New polling on voting intentions at a Senedd election suggests that Plaid Cymru is running just 1% behind Labour – a sensational finding that raises the possibility of Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth becoming First Minister in less than two years’ time.

The figures suggest that the scandals involving outgoing First Minister Vaughan Gething, coupled with increasing disillusionment about the quality of public service delivery, have seriously damaged Labour and threaten to dislodge it from the leading role it’s had in Wales politics for more than a century.

In 2026, Members of the Senedd will be elected using a “closed list” electoral system where people vote for a party rather than an individual and seats are allocated on a proportional basis.

Today’s report written by Dr Jac Larner of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre uses data from the 2024 Welsh Election Study that puts Labour on 25%; Plaid Cymru on 24%; the Conservatives 16%; Reform UK 16%; Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party 7%; the Green Party 6%; the Liberal Democrats 6%; and Others 1%. Non-voters and undecided respondents were excluded from the calculations.

Projections

Dr Larner explains in his report that seat projections are difficult to make because the new “super constituencies” on which Senedd elections will be fought have not yet been decided upon. He has, however, made some calculations based on 1,000 possible twinning arrangements – each super constituency will consist of two twinned seats.

There will be 16 super constituencies, each electing six MSs on a proportional basis – a total of 96. Dr Larner has averaged the 2,000 potential twinning arrangements and made these seat projections, which contain fractions because of the averaging: Labour 28.7 seats; Plaid Cymru 28.0 seats: Reform 16.2 seats: the Conservatives 15.1 seats: the Green Party 3.1 seats; the Liberal Democrats 3.0 seats; and Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party 1.8 seats.

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said: “The people of Wales are clearly sensing change, losing faith in Labour’s ability to lead and looking to Plaid Cymru for a new, positive kind of leadership. The chaos under Vaughan Gething won’t be fixed by the coronation of Eluned Morgan; Welsh Labour’s challenges are much more fundamental.

“After 25 years in power, Welsh Labour are tired and directionless. They have utterly lost the sense of responsibility and discipline that are central to being an effective party of government. Instead, they are scrambling to fix their own chaos at a time when people need a government committed to public service.

“Plaid Cymru is working hard to earn the trust of the people in Wales and demonstrate that we can bring a sense of duty back into our politics. We want to show that Wales can have a government that focuses on the needs of the people, not those of Welsh Labour.”

Challenge

A Labour insider said: “ Eluned Morgan clearly has a real challenge in front of her. It’s been clear for some time that voters are angry Vaughan accepted a huge donation from a convicted environmental criminal. Vaughan Gething should take responsibility and apologise.

So should his cheerleaders who refused to accept it was a problem. Claims that the public weren’t interested in the scandal were ridiculous at the time, but a refusal to accept it now would be really damaging to Labour’s electoral chances. I’m glad Eluned chose to apologise. It’s now time to ensure it never happens again.”

The report states: “The 2026 Senedd election will mark a new era of devolution in Wales, with an expanded Senedd and a new electoral system unlocking new dynamics of party competition.

“In Welsh elections, we consistently observe a phenomenon known as multilevel voting. This isn’t the natural ‘churn’ between elections where voters reassess parties and adjust their choices accordingly. Instead, multilevel voting is a deliberate, systematic practice where voters support different parties at various levels of government.

“It’s a predictable pattern, distinct from typical voting fluctuations. During the most recent election campaign, opinion polls revealed an increase in this behaviour. The number of respondents indicating their intent to vote for different parties at different governmental levels reached some of the highest figures we’ve ever recorded.

“The Welsh Election Study’s post-election survey asked respondents about their voting choices in two scenarios: their actual vote in the July 4 general election and their hypothetical vote in a Senedd election.

“The [survey] reveals a stark contrast between voting intentions at different governmental levels. Labour’s commanding 20-point lead over Plaid Cymru in Westminster elections shrinks dramatically to a mere one-point advantage when considering Senedd voting intentions. This shift is primarily driven by a direct transfer of voters from Labour to Plaid Cymru for Senedd elections, although the high number of undecided voters is also noteworthy.

“This pattern has been a consistent feature throughout the devolution era, but our survey data indicates that the magnitude of this voter transfer has been gradually increasing since 2011. Other significant, albeit less pronounced, shifts include Conservative voters gravitating towards the Abolish the Assembly Party. This trend, observed in the past two Senedd elections, reflects an increasingly devosceptic stance among many Conservative supporters.

“The substantial voter migration between Labour and Plaid Cymru can be attributed to a simple factor: mutual appreciation among their supporters. A standard election study question asks respondents to rate parties on a 0-10 scale, with 0 indicating strong dislike and 10 signifying strong approval. Predictably, voters give the highest scores to their chosen party.

“However, the most intriguing aspect lies in the ratings given to parties other than the one voted for. Notably, the smallest gap exists between Labour voters’ assessments of Labour and Plaid Cymru, explaining the ease of voter transfer between these parties. In contrast, the Conservatives face a worrying trend: Reform voters show little affinity for the Conservative Party, suggesting a significant challenge in reclaiming these voters in future elections.

“Finally, the phenomenon of multilevel voting extends beyond mere ballot choices, influencing even traditionally ‘fixed’ aspects of political behaviour such as party identity. This psychological attachment, typically formed during adolescence or early adulthood, is usually considered stable. However, our study reveals a surprising fluidity in party loyalties across different levels of government. Even among committed partisans (only 50% of the sample), we observed a notable divergence in party support between governmental levels.

“A striking example is the approximately 16% of self-identified Labour Party supporters who simultaneously considered themselves Plaid Cymru supporters in the Welsh arena. This Labour-to-Plaid Cymru transfer of partisan loyalty was the most significant observed between any two parties, underscoring the complexity of political affiliations in the Welsh context.”

Close race

Reflecting on the results, Dr Larner stated: “Multiple points are worth addressing here. The first is the incredibly close race for the largest party, with Labour and Plaid Cymru neck and neck. One byproduct of this tight race is that no single party is close to winning a majority of seats in the new expanded Senedd, requiring some sort of agreement between several parties.

“Just as there is a tight race at the top, the competition for the third largest party is also incredibly close. As things stand however, there is little prospect of a combined right-of-centre government (even when including Abolish in this calculation).

“The Greens, Liberal Democrats, and Abolish the Welsh Assembly (sic) Party are projected to win far fewer seats, but given the lack of clear government formation combinations could end up wielding substantial amounts of power, acting as potential Kingmakers.”

Dr Larner lists four caveats to the findings:

* There are two years until the next scheduled Senedd election and things can change substantially in that time. This is just a snapshot of things as they currently stand.

* People have not voted under the new electoral system, and many won’t even be aware there has been a change to the electoral system. We know that people vote differently under different electoral systems so we might not be picking these changes up.

* His model assumes a uniform national swing using estimates he has produced of what the 2021 election would have looked like using the new 32 Welsh Westminster constituencies. To do this he used data from the 2021 Welsh Election Study combined with demographic information for each constituency. Again, this required several assumptions which might be flawed.

* There are opinion polls by other firms, notably Redfield and Wilton, that have significantly different figures to the Welsh Election Study’s Senedd vote intention figures. If we were to use these numbers instead, the picture would look far better for Labour and the Conservatives and worse for Plaid Cymru and Reform – though Dr Larner thinks it’s fair to note they overestimated Labour vote share in the general election by roughly nine points.

The Welsh Election Study is a detailed independent study of politics and elections in Wales, funded by the Economic and Research Council. In the most recent UK general election, the study conducted surveys in two waves on a representative study of the Welsh voting age public with a sample size of approximately 2,500 people. Respondents were interviewed once before the election and once afterwards.